Well, maybe.

After the Great Purge of 09 - Others smarter than me have mentioned in a different thread that perhaps we could try actually communicating with GWS. Yes, I know that this has been tried before on an individual level. I'd like to see about doing it in a coordinated way as a community.

The way I see it, here are the steps we need to follow:

1.) Determine if this is even worth doing. Do we as a community even want to, as someone else put it, "Save GWS from themselves"? Rather then just swap to a different game.

2.) Determine as a group how much correspondence it would take to potentially make a statement, and aim for that much.

3.) Create a list of gripes. This should be short and easily read, with realistic goals. Issue perhaps would be: lower the price on plastic models (or stop creeping upwards), permit sites to create fan content if they carry a disclaimer, un-maul the LRB6, make a ruling on the deffrolla... I'm sure a few people have other ideas.

4.) Indicate that although this is not a boycott per se, our buying habits have been/will be influenced by their behavior towards the community at large.

5.) Determine the best target for this gripe-bomb. Jervis, perhaps?
Several people suggested Jervis is not the best target, and this should go to an executive.

6.) Actually write out and send paper letters, hopefully reaching the goal in stage 2.
Chimera_Calvin suggested handing the letters in, in person.


Is this worth pursuing? Has it been tried in the last, say, year?

Sounds like a good idea but don't just send it to Jervis. All that will come of that is a three page Standard Bearer reply to it about the good old days and how times change.

I agree with the sentiment even if I think the effort and potential result isn't worth it. Internet campaigns are a waste of time given GW's disdain for cyberspace. A flood of complaint letters might make them see sense if I didn't think that GW actually bother reading and inwardly digesting fan mail other than to send back a generic cut and paste response.

Maybe we can all organise a march on GW headquarters carrying placards and slogans? Mind you, it didnt do much good in preventing Mr Blair taking us to war over here so...

Better suited in the discussions board though eh ? ... go .. go .. go...

filbert wrote:Maybe we can all organise a march on GW headquarters carrying placards and slogans? Mind you, it didnt do much good in preventing Mr Blair taking us to war over here so...

It's all good until the Arbites show up

Well, it's not 40k based - a lot of the gripes are with BB's LRB and such. Unless I originally posted this in news, in which case - sorry, my bad.

And yes, internet campaigns are useless. This would have to end with actual letters and maybe phone calls.

Do not direct anything to Jervis Johnson, he is just an employee of GW and does not direct group business strategy. Its the CEO and board that directs the business.

If these issues directly affect the running and long term viability of the business then the board members and shareholder will take steps, either removing CEOS and board members and replacing them with others along with other options.

Board members, investors, fund managers and shareholders should be the target.

The onus will be on you guys to illustrate the negative impact on the business in all likelihood you would need some substantiated data to even get heard. A petition may be a good start.


EDIT:

Jervis may be a good idea as a point of contact for a letter writing campaign but don't expect a shift in policy he has to tow the company line.

I do genuinely feel that if GW were aware of how badly they are treating their fan base and damaging their long term future, then they would wake up and react sharpish. I am one of those people who think their actions are borne out of naivety and ignorance rather than any sort of intended malice. That being said, maybe a well written and substantiated letter or series of letters to the big cheeses at GW corporate HQ might do the business?

So - Mark Wells, Tom Kirby, those sorts of people perhaps for step 5?

I wouldn't bother complaining about prices, no one likes paying more for something. You have to be specific in your complain not just "Stop bashing the fans, end codex creep and while you're at it stop raising prices". Your main concern will be lost in a generic rant.

The thing that has pissed a lot of people off is the aggressive manner in which GW have attacked fan sites and shown a total lack of respect for the people who buy and support their older games. This is highlighted by the manner in which they let someone spend years writing a new Blood Bowl Rulebook for them only to cut it about when they recieved it and remove the writing credits page, which is contemptible. They also said that the only official version was version 1 that came in the original box game and which doesn't contain the rules for many of the figures available on their site.

Some of the actions they have taken against fans sites are legally legitimate. They may be unnecessary and unpleasant, but they are legit. Others are not so, and appear to be done through ignorance or bullying. Think about your examples carefully, because if you merely cite Board Game Geek you will simply find that GW Legal will say that they were hosting copyrighted material and your letter will go in the bin.

The main problem is that while 'we' (being the online gaming fraternity) all have a good idea of GW's problems and how to solve them, GW don't have to listen to us.

Now, that may seem like stating the b****ing obvious, but from GW's perspective, they believe veterans in general and forthright members of the online community in particular are a tiny minority of their customer base (and, therefore a tiny minority of their income).

The only way GW will listen to our views and take them seriously is if they believed that if all of us stopped spending money that their profitability would be under threat.

Unfortunately, they have two things going for them. One - hard as it is to admit, they may be right. If 90% plus of their income comes from people who don't care about specialist games, clear and concise rules and balanced games, why should they do the work required to keep 'us' happy? Two - they probably know that for all our qualms and irrespective of the merits of our arguments (or the methods we choose to put those arguments to GW) we will almost certainly feed our plasticrack habit from our usual supplier.


Now, all that being said, that does not mean that we shouldn't protest. What it does mean however is that our protest must take a form that will make GW take notice of. For my money the only thing that would actually work is a list of specific greivances, supported by a petition. Book a meeting with a senior exec and hand over the petition in person (get a photo of this if possible!) and let every member of the gaming press (limited as such a group is) know exactly what happened.

This kind of thing can work, but it needs doing with a sufficient level of flair and professionalism that would convince the board that its not just nerdrage!

my $0.02

Howard A Treesong wrote:The thing that has pissed a lot of people off is the aggressive manner in which GW have attacked fan sites and shown a total lack of respect for the people who buy and support their older games.

I agree, you have to be very specific in what you want to take action about. Taking down copyrighted material off websites (not the other, more aggressive C&Ds) and raising prices should be left completely out of it.

I also think, that although this thread may be to hash it out, if you really want to get the ball rolling on something like this, someone would have to really take point, get it organized, and make some executive decisions based on everyone's input. The majority of us will never be able to agree enough on the specifics to take action. But if you take something we can all agree on, like the excessive C&D storm (other than relating to copyrighted material) and the treatment of LRB6 for Blood Bowl, and then put it in a format that we can easily chip in to- say, a pre-addressed letter format that we could all download and send, maybe even with some of the text in there already- that's how you get something like this to happen.

So I'd use this to gather ideas, then make a new thread / website / etc to actually take action and do this thing.

Cheers,
Steve / RiTides

It's not worth it. Those that complain are just ignored as whingers.

Speak with your money if it bothers you that much.

I refer the honourable gentleman to the reply I gave some moments ago

/house-of-commons-speak

Chimera_Calvin wrote:I refer the honourable gentleman to the reply I gave some moments ago

/house-of-commons-speak

i read your coment. doesn't change the bottom line.

They. Just. Plain. Do. Not. Care.

If you don't agree 100% with what they're doing, you're not part of the target audience and can be dismissed.

The guys in charge of GW get their money whether you buy stuff from them or whether they run the company into the ground because they'll take a golden parachute when the IP gets sold off in Bankruptcy.

That surely is the argument though? Can an effective response by found?

Its very easy to say nothing we do makes a difference and I agree a lot of it doesn't. This discussion is about options for things that may work, hence I suggested something.

At least we can have the satisfaction of saying we tried to save something that has given most of us a great deal of fun over the years, however futile the end result may be.

I have one word for you: Interns.

This is where your complaint letters will stop in any company. They will put the complaint letters in a stack and send you a stock response letter:

"Thank you for contacting Games Workshop, Ltd. with your concerns. Your concerns will be forwarded to the approprate party in order to best facilitate in adressing your concerns. Again, thank you for being a loyal Games Workshop, Ltd. customer.

Rubber Stamp Signature
CEO, Games Workshop Ltd."

This is all you are going to get from a letter writing campaign to the company. As I stated in the ill fated and pointless attempt for a boycott that the company will not listen to customers or their letters unless they are positive comments or from a share holder.

Since the Games Workshop, Ltd. is a publicly traded company and complaints not from a government offical which can effect their business or a shareholder then all other communitcations will be ignored. This is because it is not cost effective for them to invest manhours into concerns that will not increase the profits of their shareholders, which are where the true reigns of power are located at within Games Workshop, Ltd.

So before you waste your money on postage and time writing letters you need to have something to back yourself up with something they care about since your $50 or $100 dollars you are going to spend mean not a damn thing in the big picture to the CEO and CFO. Now if every person that wrote in was a stockholder and put that into their letter that they are verifiable stockholder then their concerns will be adress.

So writing letters to a company is something you see on the news that grade schoolers do because it is a feel good, cute news story but it is not what an adult does. So, put your money where your mouth or pen is, grow up and buy some damn stock then you will be heard when you complain!

Well, one of the questions raised was "is this worth doing", so I definitely appreciate all the people stating this is a waste of time. Speaking for only myself, I have already started transitioning over to PP products, but have done so regretfully. I do love the mythos and the IP.

Becoming stockholders was an interesting tack I had not considered.

I understand where you are coming from, Pipboy101, but even from shareholders, corrrespondence will routinely be ignored (or at least fobbed off with the usual platitudes) unless their holding is significant.

What you need to do (unless you have sufficient funds to make a significant investment - I personally don't) is to find a way of attracting their attention that doesn't involve a few million quid.

Does anybody else have ideas in this direction?

well how much do gw shares cost, it we all chip in or something we could pool our shares and make a difference.

Another thing about a publicy traded company is that they already of short term and long term goals in place. Unless something major happens such as oil prices rise nearly over night to the point that making plastic and transportation become to expensive to produce, civil war, or a natural disaster on a scale that it would disrupt life all over the western world then GW, Ltd will not change their short/long term goal no matter what a non-stock holders do or say.

Even in the global economic downturn GW, Ltd. this year has turned the highest profit over the last 5 years for their share holders. So your letters are going to mean nothing.

255 pence each at the minute. I don't know how many shares the company has in total, though - if anyone could enlighten us as to what stake your £2.55 gets you?

Agreed, one of the reasons for my ongoing ire with GW is it's attitude towards it's customer base.

The actions we have been discussing here are indicative that, despite the good intentions of sending letters expressing dissatisfaction, the company does not place any value on those customers old enough to actually realise they're getting done over.

The company has been, over years now, moving away from the long term player and the 'hobby' as a whole and actively seeking to make it's self a 'fad' for kids to go through.

So, whilst I'd love to write a letter stating my problems with the behaviour I have found so reprehensible from GW lately, it would not be taken on board and is simply wasting my free time.

We are talking about a firm that shuts down it's own forums, that has no letters page in it's periodical (or catalogue as I now refer to WD), that issues C&D letters to it's own fanbase, that does not credit fan's hard work on anything 'they might steal!!1!' if they did.




One action is the only course. Cease your purchasing of GW items. Seek other companies products. Expand your gaming horizons.

filbert wrote:I do genuinely feel that if GW were aware of how badly they are treating their fan base and damaging their long term future, then they would wake up and react sharpish. I am one of those people who think their actions are borne out of naivety and ignorance

That is a real belly buster!!!

Is it April fools again already?

Even being a shareholder likely wont make much of a difference.

A poster here by the username of "Precinct Omega" (A damn fine modeler and long time Dakka member) is a shareholder and was invited to the GW shareholder meeting in either 2007 or 2008. IIRC, from what he said, GW didnt even take criticisms seriously from a person who owns enough stock to be invited to a shareholder meeting.

I could very well be mistaken on this, and welcome correction if I am mistaken.

I will attempt to find the thread and update this post with a link.

[edit]
Found the article:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/218542.page

I was mistaken about the shareholder feedback, but PO doesnt make many comments about feedback so... Perhaps I read the sister thread on warseer and thought that. Not sure but as it stands right now I was mistaken. Which is to say, the thread neither confirms nor disputes shareholders feedback being taken seriously.

It IS however, a very interesting read and I highly recommend taking a few minutes to absorb it.

GAMES WORKSHOP GRP (GAW.L)
22 Dec: 263.65 p 6.15 (2.39%)

That is not british pounds but pence.

It looks like it is approx $4.21 USD per stock.


To keezus: Buying and then returning product only hurts the LFGS owner and buying a gift card and returning does even less since nothing of physical value was traded. You might even lose out since alot of companies will charge a service fee to return a gift card.

Well, GW is just another for profit company. Seeing them as something else just because they sell hobby product can be charitably described as idealistic. If you want to alter their course, buy sufficient stock to get some voting options, whether it's on your own or collectively as a group. If you want to show your dissatisfaction, stop buying their product.

For better or for worse, GW is out to make money. The downside to it is that their decisions will be made largely toward what the board sees as increasing revenue. Game lines which do not produce a sizable or reliable return will be lightly supported at best. The upside is that so long as GW is profitable, we are much more likely to see the game continue on for years.

keezus wrote:

Howlingmoon wrote:Speak with your money if it bothers you that much.

Bah. Boycots are pointless. While they won't notice a boycot (as management never realizes that they loose sales due to customer disatisfaction), they WILL notice this:

Step 1. Buy as much GW product as you can before the end of a financial quarter - preferably in the $1000+ range. Christmas is a great time for this.
Step 2. GET A GIFT RECIEPT.
Step 3. Return all product purchased above (at a different location) at the start of the next quarter.
Step 4. Profit.

that does exactly... what?

All that will accomplish is that they'll change their return policy. They are NOT obligated to take returns if the item was not purchased at that particular store. They do so because the front line guys bend ovr backwards for customer service (often because they know how bad things are higher up the food chain.)

Seriously, all your short sighted "internet cooldude anarchist" idea accomplishes is to probably put some store guys out of work in January.

now, that said.

Quit being bad.

Pipboy101 wrote:

Even in the global economic downturn GW, Ltd. this year has turned the highest profit over the last 5 years for their share holders. So your letters are going to mean nothing.

No return on that profit to the shareholders though; GW didn't pay dividends. I'm thinking of selling; at least most of my other holdings pay dividends, heck citibank gave me .01 cents/share this year and they nearly went under.

So, GW doesn't care about shareholders either.

we could cut up white dwarf and use the letters in it to spell out complaints to show our disdain!!!

Though I agree with your trials, and with the idea of sending it to the CEO, and even the CFO, but the only real way to to appeal to the stock holders. Believe it or not a board is powerless to a majority of the stock holders. If you go to their annual meeting and you are a stock holder you may be able to convince enough to make a change, but otherwise you are just barking up a tree with no cat on top.

Good luck.

Personally, I think any success starts as a shareholder, then as a buyer.

Writing letters? How quaint.

GW US only cares if the paper says "Federal Reserve Note"

Any other ideas about what an effective effort could be, if it was coordinated well as a community?

Empchild wrote:Though I agree with your trials, and with the idea of sending it to the CEO, and even the CFO, but the only real way to to appeal to the stock holders. Believe it or not a board is powerless to a majority of the stock holders. If you go to their annual meeting and you are a stock holder you may be able to convince enough to make a change, but otherwise you are just barking up a tree with no cat on top.

except that the majority of GW's stock holders is the venture capital holding company that took GW over in the 90's when they almost went tits up.

ie: the guys that put Kirby in charge and the guys directing what GW has been doing since the 90's.

You guys just. don't. get. that. Do you?

Oh well it's all hopeless and nothing we can do will make any difference etc etc ad nauseam.

Look I agree with being a cynic and I agree that pretty much any complaint raised as a community will be ignored and/or refuted. However, I do believe doing *something* is better than sitting around doing nothing with our thumbs up our a**es. In fact, it's better than doing nothing and then whinging and whining on a forum about GW.

You're definately right.

Which is why I stopped buying from Games Workshop.

Very decisive action. I have since been amazed on my travels across the interwebs at the great work being produced by other mini companies. It's been a great move for me.

Boycotts can be effective. However, sporadic boycotts will not be. If anything, it needs to be organised and well constructed and therein lies the problem; any talk of a boycott always ends in everyone arguing and flaming and lets be honest, out of all the people who say they will boycott, how many actually stick to it?

As has been said before by various people, really the only way to hurt a company like GW and make them sit up and take notice of a message is to hit them hard in the wallet. How we as a community can do that, i have no idea.

filbert wrote:Oh well it's all hopeless and nothing we can do will make any difference etc etc ad nauseam.

Look I agree with being a cynic and I agree that pretty much any complaint raised as a community will be ignored and/or refuted. However, I do believe doing *something* is better than sitting around doing nothing with our thumbs up our a**es. In fact, it's better than doing nothing and then whinging and whining on a forum about GW.

Meh.

I was on a "boycott" of Games Workshop for 5 years due to a horrible marraige. Now that's over with and I'm actually having fun with the hobby again. You kids can do what you want, but I actually spent $175 as a christmas present to myself last night to start a Noise Marine army for an escalation league.

filbert wrote:out of all the people who say they will boycott, how many actually stick to it?

As has been said before by various people, really the only way to hurt a company like GW and make them sit up and take notice of a message is to hit them hard in the wallet. How we as a community can do that, i have no idea.

When I deduced the last GW Boycott was a total farce, just like every other Internet-led boycott before it, I pretended to play along right up until the moment that something shiny caught my eye at the Battle Bunker Bazaar. At that point, I let my self interest jump way the hell in front of some stupid pretend boycott. I'm proud to have done my share and boycotted GW for all of a week, when I wasn't buying anything anyways. And now that there isn't anything I'm buying at the moment, I'm going to pretend to be all outraged at GW and boycott them again!

If you want to boycott GW, then you need to show big numbers over a sustained period. In this regard, the Internet is utter FAIL. It's a effing joke. It's an infant throwing a tantrum.

If you're going to do this, some advice (not that I think anyone cares to hear it)...

Stop making this about you. When I see things like threads called "The Great Fan Pushback of 2010", MGS calling on people to join his boycott, or the constant stream of "GW won't listen to you. They're EEEEEEEEVIL!", I don't get a sense of concerned customers trying to save the product they love. I get more the sense of internet geeks trying to make a dramatic show and get attention as put-upon rebels.

Whatever actions you take, you will not get taken seriously if you look like you're taking them to over-dramatise what is essentially a dispute over toy soldiers. That's not to say you guys shouldn't try what you're doing. Just try to keep the chest-thumping to a minimum.

Howlingmoon wrote:

Meh.

I was on a "boycott" of Games Workshop for 5 years due to a horrible marraige. Now that's over with and I'm actually having fun with the hobby again. You kids can do what you want, but I actually spent $175 as a christmas present to myself last night to start a Noise Marine army for an escalation league.

This is precisely the point I am trying to make. Out of all the people who are dissatisfied with GW's actions, you will get some who are rabid about punishing them, some who aren't and some who are just indifferent and apathetic. That is why a boycott will not work unless it is organised and controlled to the 'n'th degree - something that will be highly unlikely to organise as a fan base.

As for your own choices, well that is your right as a consumer; if you don't feel that strongly about GW's actions in recent months/years, then one can hardly expect you to be an active participant.

For the record, I don't personally plan to boycott GW because I don't think it will make any difference. I, along with many others, will just keep sucking up GW's crap because I like their games and fluff and am willing to put up with the BS as opposed to finding an alternative and voting with my feet.

RiTides wrote:Any other ideas about what an effective effort could be, if it was coordinated well as a community?

A hunger strike, preferably in front of the GW HQ in Nottinghamshire.

Keep it up until somebody actually dies. That way it will get media attention for sure.

Hunger strike? How quaintly passive-aggressive.

Man up and self-immolate!

JohnHwangDD wrote:Hunger strike? How quaintly passive-aggressive.

Man up and self-immolate!

You first....





Just kidding of course...

Howlingmoon wrote:

Empchild wrote:Though I agree with your trials, and with the idea of sending it to the CEO, and even the CFO, but the only real way to to appeal to the stock holders. Believe it or not a board is powerless to a majority of the stock holders. If you go to their annual meeting and you are a stock holder you may be able to convince enough to make a change, but otherwise you are just barking up a tree with no cat on top.

except that the majority of GW's stock holders is the venture capital holding company that took GW over in the 90's when they almost went tits up.

ie: the guys that put Kirby in charge and the guys directing what GW has been doing since the 90's.

You guys just. don't. get. that. Do you?

I do get it actually just like I know disney made an offer to buy them out in 2002 but Citadel refused. Also everyone GW owns a very popular historical line formerly known as wargames foundry. They have branched out, but the point of it all is the only way you could really force a valid change would be through a majority vote of the stock holders, and since the majority is owned by a single corp. your chances are aboutzero to nill. The company that bought out GW sis so as an investment hence the changes we have seen. They propbably care little about gaming as they bought it to make money. I can't tell you what they think though because I amnot on their board. I am at a cubical in a GOV't building here in the commonwealth of MASS. Though I agree something needs to change, short of you actually getting like thousands of sigs with peoples info to support that yes they are real people, I just don't see anything working.

These days, all you need is a Facebook group and a celebrity to attract the press!

Seriously, though, painting and playing with small metal or plastic dolls might be as nerdy a hobby as they come, but I have no doubt that if a substantial part of the hobby community banded together and acted professionally they could be heard and have an impact.
But as already mentioned, being a shareholder is a good first step. Get all the other GW fan sites out there on the bandwagon and encourage every user of those sites to buy 1 GW stock. Ofcourse by far from everyone will buy 1, but if a "donation drive" could be setup that accepted paypal and could buy the stocks from the fans, that should make it easier for people. (Laziness is the worst enemy of any "consumer revolution" )

Make a big list of all the shareholders names and form a "concerned shareholders group", and then send 1 representative to a shareholder meeting to bring forth the general points brought up here.

All the while trying to get some press coverage, any type, so that it can get a wider coverage, and would make GW notice it. I mean, I've seen the BBC News run a story about some dudes who's hobby was restoring old consoles, that's fairly nerdy as well.

All this needs to be refined and channeled by a "Spartacus" ofcourse, but I have no doubt it could work, if the snowball would start to roll...

Best thing to do if you're really offended is stop buying GW. The problem with that of course is that they do make some excellent plastic fantasy models- but if you look around you'll find many other companies doing fine work in that arena who are usually cheaper too.

I dunno, I'm pretty annoyed about this, but again I don't realistically see myself boycotting entirely any time soon. I am branching out into other systems more and more, but if I'm honest that is self interest too. I've enough going on in my life that I want my hobby to be sheer enjoyment not weighed by moral outrage and angst.

Storytime folks.

I spent 10 years in the US Army, then worked in Law Enforcement for several years after that, so i used to be heavily into the "gun scene" here in the states. Back in the late 80's, the MAIN weapons dealer for law enforcement was still Smith and Wesson. Sure the Semi-Autos were making a dent in the LEO Pistol sales, but by and far, Smith and Wesson Revolvers still had the lions share of business Nationwide. Over 75% of their pistol sales were to private citizens as well, making the majority of their income derive from "luxury sales" collectors, gun enthusiasts, competition shooters, etc, etc.

During the 1990 Weapons ban that ended so disastrously for the Clinton administration, Smith and Wesson signed on to the ban, folding under political pressure. Their customer base abandoned them immediately. line managers, junior execs, VP's, etc, etc, etc....90% of the SW employees were screaming at the CEO, CFO, COO and their top execs...and they were ignored. The Company signed onto the Ban on various weapons, and was promptly treated as a diseased whore by their customers, including most of law enforcement.

During the 90's, sales at S&W trickled down to almost nothing, and they were hurt...badly...their loss of market share allowed Glock, Sig, and even Taurus to enter and seriously compete in the pistol market here in the US. Only the Foreign sales allowed S&W to keep their doors open.

What GW is doing is essentially the same. They are angering their customer base, allowing competitors to gain market share, and loosing money. I would put money on the fact that most of the mid level execs and the hordes of faceless hourly wage workers are furious as well...but the top execs don't care, or don't know, that the moves their company is making are really Pi$$ing us off. The top execs don't HAVE to care, they make their money anyway, and by the time the shareholders start putting pressure on, it's too late...their customer base has already moved to FoW, Warmachine, etc, etc.... I certainly have.

Dont get me wrong, i still love playing 40K. I have a small fortune in 6 different armies. But i already have what i need. Sure the new nids will be tempting, but i already have lots of fexes and gaunts, and forgeworld trygons. GW will not get another dime from me until they change their ways.

Pipboy101 wrote:To keezus: Buying and then returning product only hurts the LFGS owner and buying a gift card and returning does even less since nothing of physical value was traded. You might even lose out since alot of companies will charge a service fee to return a gift card.

Forgot to note to do at a GW outlet. It is pointless to hurt a LFGS.

Edit 1: Granted, without knowing GW's exact return policies, this maneuver is fairly unadvisable. GW will only take note that something is up through direct impacts to their cashflow. A mass return on a large scale would theoretically affect supply chain and inventory, as well as their profits... Like anything else brought up in this thread, not terribly effective, and would only work en masse - and ideally if items bought and sold were starters, which GW's are geared to push.

Writing letters, even if they are a form letter with individual signatures is quiet a good way of getting noticed. The amount of mail would force any company just to take a look and maybe invite some dialogue.

Individuals boycotting product and moving elsewhere does not say anything, its barely noticeable on any great level.

Individuals or a group could be come shareholders, I believe that once you own shares you are entitled to go to the annual meeting. You can chair a vote of no confidence in the board, explaining the reasons behind it. This is probably the more ludicrous position since its expected that 2010 will see an increase in pre tax profit and another reduction in debt burden and 2011 will see better pre tax profits again. Anyone trying this would just be seen as a crank.

Product pricing - GW pricing strategy is not based on what competitors are doing.However, it could be a way in if its argued that a lot of players are using third party and alternative companies products rather than using GW/citadel. depends on if there are a substantial amount of people willing to back this up?

Legal Issues - Forget what your brothers cousins uncles dog thinks they know, it would take paid legal advice to see if there is a case against the C&D's that have been issued let alone to argue against GW claiming ownership to their IP's (contested by someones brothers friends uncles sloth) basically this needs financial support to even see if its viable.

Mr. Burning wrote:Writing letters, even if they are a form letter with individual signatures is quiet a good way of getting noticed. The amount of mail would force any company just to take a look and maybe invite some dialogue.

Individuals boycotting product and moving elsewhere does not say anything, its barely noticeable on any great level.

Individuals or a group could be come shareholders, I believe that once you own shares you are entitled to go to the annual meeting. You can chair a vote of no confidence in the board, explaining the reasons behind it. This is probably the more ludicrous position since its expected that 2010 will see an increase in pre tax profit and another reduction in debt burden and 2011 will see better pre tax profits again. Anyone trying this would just be seen as a crank.

Product pricing - GW pricing strategy is not based on what competitors are doing.However, it could be a way in if its argued that a lot of players are using third party and alternative companies products rather than using GW/citadel. depends on if there are a substantial amount of people willing to back this up?

Legal Issues - Forget what your brothers cousins uncles dog thinks they know, it would take paid legal advice to see if there is a case against the C&D's that have been issued let alone to argue against GW claiming ownership to their IP's (contested by someones brothers friends uncles sloth) basically this needs financial support to even see if its viable.

Yes you can request a vote of no confidence in the board, and to do so you need a majority vote. SO lets see if 51% of all GW stocks are owned by a pvt. corp such as they are and they vote confidence, and 49%vote no confidence even though that 49% is in the thousands of peeps guess who wins. Plus votes such as those cause problems because when you do that legally (Iknow this from a very sad experience) you have to pay out a percentage of assets to the individual once you can them.Now generally if the company is in the red it's more like heres a penny have fun, but often never works that way.

My last cent was spent on GW when I bought the 5th ed 40k rulebook. While I agree not spending money on GW is the best way to get their attention, I'd take it a bit further than even that. Start talking to your LFGS owners. Usually lots of us know the proprietors personally and if you don't, then get to know them. At that point tell them you're no longer supporting GW products and how they may need to re-think purchasing those products. That would be a way bigger punch in GW's wallet than just one persons decision to stop spending money.

If I had a LFGS locally to me this is the first step I'd take. I've toyed w/ the idea of starting my own shop and I know if that happened I'd not carry GW products. Just another thought.

keezus wrote: A mass return on a large scale would theoretically affect supply chain and inventory, as well as their profits...

This will only work if you returned opened goods since the company cannot simply reseal the package and put it back on the shelf at full price if it has already been openned even it all the pieces are there. However, this would have to be done in such volume and there isn't enough people that have the money or leave close enough to an Offical GW store, not a LFGS.

deffskullz wrote:we could cut up white dwarf and use the letters in it to spell out complaints to show our disdain!!!

You could, but there's only so many words you can make out of SPACE MARINES.

Rymafyr wrote:My last cent was spent on GW when I bought the 5th ed 40k rulebook. While I agree not spending money on GW is the best way to get their attention, I'd take it a bit further than even that. Start talking to your LFGS owners. Usually lots of us know the proprietors personally and if you don't, then get to know them. At that point tell them you're no longer supporting GW products and how they may need to re-think purchasing those products. That would be a way bigger punch in GW's wallet than just one persons decision to stop spending money.

If I had a LFGS locally to me this is the first step I'd take. I've toyed w/ the idea of starting my own shop and I know if that happened I'd not carry GW products. Just another thought.

Not really. You know as well as I do that GW really don't want anyone other than GW Stores carrying their stuff.

Why? Because Independent Retailers are FILTHY DISCOUNTERS.

True..I had overlooked that...

Hit them in their target market.
12 to 14 yr olds.
get on youtube and facebook. tell people about them.

Just curious, how long have all you been playing? Cause my memory goes pretty far back, accounting for the standard lapses. Tell me about this golden age, when all the codexs were perfectly balanced, the models were beautiful and cheap, when GW swooped down the chimney with a smile and a ham sandwich, to ask, "What's wrong, little fella?", when no one played Marines, and all armies were supported equally.
Take me back past the mists of the red age, past the card stock models, take me back, to the long, long ago...

I believe you mean The Grand Dakka of Strawmen. I was merely observing that I've been reading this particular thread, sometimes multiple versions of it, for over a decade now.
However, no one is forcing me to read this, and I must surely have something better to do. The burden of power is great. Therefore, I ceed the treefort to you. I hope that there will be no bad blood between our two great nations, at least nothing that an exchage of pleasantries, and well wishing, won't fix.

I think the facebook idea is a actual way of interest. If many websites are also linked to it, i believe it would drive quite a large amount of modivation.

Ha! wrote:I believe you mean The Grand Dakka of Strawmen. I was merely observing that I've been reading this particular thread, sometimes multiple versions of it, for over a decade now.
However, no one is forcing me to read this, and I must surely have something better to do. The burden of power is great. Therefore, I ceed the treefort to you. I hope that there will be no bad blood between our two great nations, at least nothing that an exchage of pleasantries, and well wishing, won't fix.

I don't mean to burst anyones bubble, but a multinational corporation isn't going to be particularly effected by the market churn of seven or eight players. People join and quit the hobby all the time. This is all a lot of nice grandstanding, but I don't think you guys can really accomplish much with just yourselves. You're better off trying a line of communication with the companies representatives and voicing concerns reasonably.

Oh no..GW the villagers are gathering torches and pitch forks. Baracade yourself in your offices!



Cheers

First of all is it worth writing to GW? Yes and No.

Will they actually give a personal reply? Yes - well they did when I worked there.

Will they care one whit about your complaint? No - they'll read it, send a personal reply but you will ultimately change nothing.

A mass revolt of players won't solve anything either as they don't even see PP as a threat. They see the video games Market as more of a threat than another hobby games specialist.

The only way to change a company is to hit them where they can feel it. And that is only in one place: The bottom line. And if we don't all join hands and march to the town square and refuse to buy their products they will continue.

If they lose creative people and their profits suffer, they'll have to pay more to people who can get that quality back.

If they lose veteran gamers who care about the nuance of legions and craftworlds and different chapters, they'll focus on 14 year olds who just want to pretend they're blowing stuff up.

If a race's sales begin to drop they'll either pump them up by making them fit perfectly with the current rules set or just drop them. If a race falls out of favour, they'll just favour someone else.

There's always a way out for big companies to not do the right thing. If we aren't in it together, they have no reason to think beyond short term profits to look at the long term trajectory.

Since we can't do that, it's just not going to happen, no matter what individual you're talking to. In companies this big, no one person yields enough power to change the course of the ship.

kinghammer wrote:Oh no..GW the villagers are gathering torches and pitch forks. Baracade yourself in your offices!



Cheers

If you're going to troll, don't be terrible at it.

Get better. Now.

Kinghammer always trolls these threads and he's always crap at it.

Ha! wrote:Just curious, how long have all you been playing? Cause my memory goes pretty far back, accounting for the standard lapses. Tell me about this golden age, when all the codexs were perfectly balanced, the models were beautiful and cheap, when GW swooped down the chimney with a smile and a ham sandwich, to ask, "What's wrong, little fella?", when no one played Marines, and all armies were supported equally.
Take me back past the mists of the red age, past the card stock models, take me back, to the long, long ago...

Hey, you know what they say about GW, "If you can remember the Golden Age, you weren't there."

More seriously though you only need refer to the numerous articles about making your own terrain, conversions and kit-bashing, Chapter Approved and so on, to know that GW do a lot less now than they used to. The quality of rules writing has improved, though the number of FAQs that still pop up about everything, show that they have a long way to go.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Ha! wrote:Just curious, how long have all you been playing? Cause my memory goes pretty far back, accounting for the standard lapses. Tell me about this golden age, when all the codexs were perfectly balanced, the models were beautiful and cheap, when GW swooped down the chimney with a smile and a ham sandwich, to ask, "What's wrong, little fella?", when no one played Marines, and all armies were supported equally.
Take me back past the mists of the red age, past the card stock models, take me back, to the long, long ago...

Hey, you know what they say about GW, "If you can remember the Golden Age, you weren't there."

More seriously though you only need refer to the numerous articles about making your own terrain, conversions and kit-bashing, Chapter Approved and so on, to know that GW do a lot less now than they used to. The quality of rules writing has improved, though the number of FAQs that still pop up about everything, show that they have a long way to go.

To back up KK, I was flicking through a PDF of WD 300 the other day sparked off by another post) and was amazed how different it was to the modern version. All the hobby stuff in it was amazing, which does back up our dreams of a golden age.

If it ain't got a Sabbat mini disk, it ain't a propa White Dorf.

I remembers... and it was great and new, if you want a golden age of Games Workshop, then for me it was the time of the Realm of Chaos books, the two tome halcyon times.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:If it ain't got a Sabbat mini disk, it ain't a propa White Dorf.

I remembers... and it was great and new, if you want a golden age of Games Workshop, then for me it was the time of the Realm of Chaos books, the two tome halcyon times.

Ere we go! and Freebooterz! I wonder if those poor poor Madboyz ever found their lost boots? TBF the 'Golden Age' also included Siege or was that the beginning of the end?

Kilkrazy wrote:

Ha! wrote:Just curious, how long have all you been playing? Cause my memory goes pretty far back, accounting for the standard lapses. Tell me about this golden age, when all the codexs were perfectly balanced, the models were beautiful and cheap, when GW swooped down the chimney with a smile and a ham sandwich, to ask, "What's wrong, little fella?", when no one played Marines, and all armies were supported equally.
Take me back past the mists of the red age, past the card stock models, take me back, to the long, long ago...

Hey, you know what they say about GW, "If you can remember the Golden Age, you weren't there."

More seriously though you only need refer to the numerous articles about making your own terrain, conversions and kit-bashing, Chapter Approved and so on, to know that GW do a lot less now than they used to. The quality of rules writing has improved, though the number of FAQs that still pop up about everything, show that they have a long way to go.

I've been playing 40k since 3rd edition. The current GW rules, Codices, and models are unambiguously better than those that were standard in 3rd and 4th, with few exceptions. The death of Chapter Approved (and the related Index Astartes articles) was a great step forward for GW. As fun as it can be to have special rules for whatever random Chapter or Regiment you choose, this approach was not balanced at all and required players to invest in additional books/magazines for no clear reason. In 5th edition, GW is three for three on strong Codices, especially with the much-needed SM and IG revisions, and the rumors seem to point to another good one coming out soon. I can't speak for what happened pre-3rd, but I think that 40k is better now than it was at any point I can remember in 3rd or 4th edition, and looks to be improving all the time.

Ouze wrote:Well, maybe.

After the Great Purge of 09 - Others smarter than me have mentioned in a different thread that perhaps we could try actually communicating with GWS. Yes, I know that this has been tried before on an individual level. I'd like to see about doing it in a coordinated way as a community.

The way I see it, here are the steps we need to follow:

1.) Determine if this is even worth doing. Do we as a community even want to, as someone else put it, "Save GWS from themselves"? Rather then just swap to a different game.

2.) Determine as a group how much correspondence it would take to potentially make a statement, and aim for that much.

3.) Create a list of gripes. This should be short and easily read, with realistic goals. Issue perhaps would be: lower the price on plastic models (or stop creeping upwards), permit sites to create fan content if they carry a disclaimer, un-maul the LRB6, make a ruling on the deffrolla... I'm sure a few people have other ideas.

4.) Indicate that although this is not a boycott per se, our buying habits have been/will be influenced by their behavior towards the community at large.

5.) Determine the best target for this gripe-bomb. Jervis, perhaps?
Several people suggested Jervis is not the best target, and this should go to an executive.

6.) Actually write out and send paper letters, hopefully reaching the goal in stage 2.
Chimera_Calvin suggested handing the letters in, in person.


Is this worth pursuing? Has it been tried in the last, say, year?

.... What is your overall strategic goal?

If it is to lower prices, you can forget that.

If it is to stop sending Cease and Desist letters to potential competition and /or upstarts with better or improved content, you can forget it.

If it is solely to "Rock the Boat", or initiate a change in the current grand scheme that GW's Board of investers is persuing. You can forget it.

Basicly anything to rock the boat is more likely to get you bought out by the status que, ignored, or ostrichised.

You guys over in Great Britain invented the game, you know how it is played.


Banking is a big dog game of warfare, you don't fight a multinational corperation with a slingshot and a bad feeling.

And make no mistake about it. YOU would be going toe to toe with serious heavy people, if at all.

More then likely, they will blow you out of the water, send you with your tail between your legs, and refanagle the stocks that you actually bought just to run you off.

REMEMBER, you are looking at messing with thier bread and butter. No one takes that and just rolls over.


Start here. look over this document and then lets see what you are dealing with.
http://investor.games-workshop.com/about_us.aspx

OK?

Who are These guys?

Tom Kirby
Mark Wells
Kevin Roundtree
Chris Myatt
Nick Donaldson

http://investor.games-workshop.com/information_for_investors/corporate_governance/the_board.aspx
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/people.asp?symbol=GAW:LN


You can see for yourself that these guys are not poseurs.

The you get to deal with these guys.

http://www.shareview.co.uk/Pages/default.aspx
http://www.keele.ac.uk/
http://investing.businessweek.com/businessweek/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=6184504
http://investing.businessweek.com/businessweek/research/stocks/private/snapshot.asp?privcapId=25957531

You can see Alumni to this University and its relationship to GW. here-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keele_University


"He who holds the purse strings..." and all that. ( Remember, THESE are only the ones you are supposed to see.)
Dig a little deeper, see what shakes out.

You might be suprised.....

You really think you are going to get anywhere by rocking that boat? Pfft, good luck with that. Even after a reletivly general research, I came to the conclusion that you would just be better off buying in on your allotment of stock, riding the wave, and making nice with these tools, then you would be to be a crybaby about something that you have no control over.

In the real world, money talks, BS walks.

Status Que is king.

Want to send a message and have fun with it?

Take a couple of WD and put them in a box. Go to GW HQ, or a local GW store, and leave the open present for them on their doorstep. Then proceed to defecate in them with your own waste or an animals waste. Maybe it wont do anything but as fans we can say "Hey, I have had enough. So here is some back to hold onto till later."

And you wonder why GW doesn't take the internet seriously. Highlights of this thread so far:

- the inevitable observations that 'GW is a company that only wants to makes a profit'. Really? Dakka should have a filter that eliminates these comments - it would cut down the length of every thread like this

- a poster who dares to remind everyone that there is a degree of revisionism in current attitudes to GW is immediately labelled 'strawman' by Dakka's leading strawman.

- and someone suggesting crapping on a WD and leaving it outside a GW store. Genius.

How many of you have actually tried writing a letter to them, instead of just mouthing off here? I've written a couple, and both received a response. Apart from 'it's too expensive' and 'I want every codex to be balanced', what are you asking for? There doesn't seem to be any consensus, despite the number of threads devoted to this alleged backlash:

- the 'cease and desist' campaign. This would have been run from a high level (i.e. GW's board of directors), and since noone here knows what caused them to do it, it's pointless complaining to them about it. For all the chest-beating about the people who were the subject of these letters, does anyone know whether any of them challenged the letters they received? The only way you can register your disapproval of this is to tell GW that you're not buying their stuff as a direct response to their actions. However, I suspect they factored some sort of backlash into their decision. I'm not saying that the directors are infallible - they've demonstrated how wrong they can get it - but they won't be naive enough to think that there wouldn't be an adverse reaction to taking down fan sites. They will have decided that the business needs overrode this.

- 'they don't support the hobby anymore'. This line is a hard one to follow. It seems to be based on the lack of articles on how to build terrain etc. in WD. Yet we now have a plethora of terrain kits for both WH40k and WHFB, as a result of which much of the earlier advice isn't necessary. They've switched their focus to painting (there is a lot more painting advice in WD and on their site) and converting their models. Besides, let's be honest here - how many beautifully scratch-built terrain pieces did you ever see, apart from those built by a few talented individuals? The reality is that the majority play their games with a few bits of makeshift terrain strewn about the table. In any event, there's nothing to stop you building your own terrain. Again, a difficult line to take as part of a campaign.

- 'the hobby is aimed at kids'. Over 10 years ago I asked a senior GW executive about support for veteran players. The answer was that the growth of the business depends on new customers, and the new customers are primarily younger teenagers. There's no reason to think that anything has changed there. And since the funding to produce the models that we like depends on them growing their business, that business model seems to be one we're stuck with. That means, I think, that we're stuck with cycles of new editions to refresh the game and keep new people coming in. Veteran gamers have no choice but to suck it up or bail out. Every new edition I see people who've been playing for years become disillusioned and dropping out, and perhaps this is happening with a number of people who post here.

- 'the prices are too high'. I think this is the easiest point to make to them. While there are all sorts of arguments that justify the high cost of the hobby, I think GW have been pushing this to the limit recently (the Greatswords and Steam Tank are examples), and a concerted campaign aimed to tacking this might have an effect (especially if they're feeling nervous about price increases). For all we know their prices are driven by high cost/lack of profitability, but it's the easiest thing for consumers to push back on. Obviously simply not buying overpriced models/kits is the simplest way of sending that message.

- 'GW doesn't care about its customers'. Again, this is a hard one to base a campaign on. GW is far more sensitive to customer reaction than many other companies. Look at the way it deals with complaints about defective products - whether it's GW or FW, you'll nearly always get a new model/kit. 'GW doesn't communicate well with its customers' would be a better line to take, since GW does seem to have trouble addressing its customer base. I think this, and their frequent changes of direction/policy, are a major cause of such of the discontent out there that's genuine . They're still having trouble understanding their own market (especially outside the UK). And they've never had a satisfactory approach to releasing rules and army books. This has been a cause for complaint for as long as I can remember. I'd support any sensible ideas for getting them to improve this, as I think that's where they continue to lose customers. However, one area where they're clearly trying to please their customers is the models. Last year saw a steady flow of new plastic kits, most of which are of an unprecedented standard. This is clearly where GW is putting most of their resources. I'll take today's models over those of [insert preferred Golden Age here].

Good post.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:Kinghammer always trolls these threads and he's always crap at it.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:That surely is the argument though? Can an effective response by found?

.

There was a sucsessfull campain waged with White wolf, from the fans. maybe the best start is to find out how they went about pressuring WW.

Facebook does sound like a viable option.

Once it gets rolling, it will attract more and more people.

It will have some real clout when it's several thousand strong.

MGS, the problem with this is the Trolls, its easy to get something shut down if a person is willing to act like a idiot with the attention of harming a cause. so how would we combat that as well?

Tailgunner wrote:And you wonder why GW doesn't take the internet seriously. Highlights of this thread so far:

- the inevitable observations that 'GW is a company that only wants to makes a profit'. Really? Dakka should have a filter that eliminates these comments - it would cut down the length of every thread like this

- a poster who dares to remind everyone that there is a degree of revisionism in current attitudes to GW is immediately labelled 'strawman' by Dakka's leading strawman.

- and someone suggesting crapping on a WD and leaving it outside a GW store. Genius.

How many of you have actually tried writing a letter to them, instead of just mouthing off here? I've written a couple, and both received a response. Apart from 'it's too expensive' and 'I want every codex to be balanced', what are you asking for? There doesn't seem to be any consensus, despite the number of threads devoted to this alleged backlash:

- the 'cease and desist' campaign. This would have been run from a high level (i.e. GW's board of directors), and since noone here knows what caused them to do it, it's pointless complaining to them about it. For all the chest-beating about the people who were the subject of these letters, does anyone know whether any of them challenged the letters they received? The only way you can register your disapproval of this is to tell GW that you're not buying their stuff as a direct response to their actions. However, I suspect they factored some sort of backlash into their decision. I'm not saying that the directors are infallible - they've demonstrated how wrong they can get it - but they won't be naive enough to think that there wouldn't be an adverse reaction to taking down fan sites. They will have decided that the business needs overrode this.

- 'they don't support the hobby anymore'. This line is a hard one to follow. It seems to be based on the lack of articles on how to build terrain etc. in WD. Yet we now have a plethora of terrain kits for both WH40k and WHFB, as a result of which much of the earlier advice isn't necessary. They've switched their focus to painting (there is a lot more painting advice in WD and on their site) and converting their models. Besides, let's be honest here - how many beautifully scratch-built terrain pieces did you ever see, apart from those built by a few talented individuals? The reality is that the majority play their games with a few bits of makeshift terrain strewn about the table. In any event, there's nothing to stop you building your own terrain. Again, a difficult line to take as part of a campaign.

- 'the hobby is aimed at kids'. Over 10 years ago I asked a senior GW executive about support for veteran players. The answer was that the growth of the business depends on new customers, and the new customers are primarily younger teenagers. There's no reason to think that anything has changed there. And since the funding to produce the models that we like depends on them growing their business, that business model seems to be one we're stuck with. That means, I think, that we're stuck with cycles of new editions to refresh the game and keep new people coming in. Veteran gamers have no choice but to suck it up or bail out. Every new edition I see people who've been playing for years become disillusioned and dropping out, and perhaps this is happening with a number of people who post here.

- 'the prices are too high'. I think this is the easiest point to make to them. While there are all sorts of arguments that justify the high cost of the hobby, I think GW have been pushing this to the limit recently (the Greatswords and Steam Tank are examples), and a concerted campaign aimed to tacking this might have an effect (especially if they're feeling nervous about price increases). For all we know their prices are driven by high cost/lack of profitability, but it's the easiest thing for consumers to push back on. Obviously simply not buying overpriced models/kits is the simplest way of sending that message.

- 'GW doesn't care about its customers'. Again, this is a hard one to base a campaign on. GW is far more sensitive to customer reaction than many other companies. Look at the way it deals with complaints about defective products - whether it's GW or FW, you'll nearly always get a new model/kit. 'GW doesn't communicate well with its customers' would be a better line to take, since GW does seem to have trouble addressing its customer base. I think this, and their frequent changes of direction/policy, are a major cause of such of the discontent out there that's genuine . They're still having trouble understanding their own market (especially outside the UK). And they've never had a satisfactory approach to releasing rules and army books. This has been a cause for complaint for as long as I can remember. I'd support any sensible ideas for getting them to improve this, as I think that's where they continue to lose customers. However, one area where they're clearly trying to please their customers is the models. Last year saw a steady flow of new plastic kits, most of which are of an unprecedented standard. This is clearly where GW is putting most of their resources. I'll take today's models over those of [insert preferred Golden Age here].

Personally? I could give a frak about what GW takes seriously.

That Cease and Desist campaign was the direct result of the guy that worked for the LRB6 for five years, and in between that time he is making special characters, alternative teams, and even a seperate game, all in direct competiton to the Blood Bowl game. Period. It doesn't really have anything to do with the whole, "Screw the fans thing." it has to do with messing with thier profits. They know people will cry a little, eventually shut up and fall in line like good little grots. People will keep buying, and if they don't then they will get others.

If it was not him directly, then at him and the others in general consensus for dipping thier beaks into someone elses till and getting into a conflict of interest. period. On one hand its cutting off the nose to spite the face, on the other, its GW's buisness as usual stance when they see a competition.
Instead of working harder to keep buisness, they go after the competition any way they can, and do it however they can get away with. Its war, deal with it. Kill the competitor, you have no competition.

They will continue to charge what they think they can get away with, partially because they are the biggest company, with name recognition, partially because of thier target audiance, and 100% because they know how to do it and can.

As for taking a dump on a WD and leaving it outside thier shop? All I can say is seriously? That will do nothing but be mildly amusing to a couple of low level employees and make the evening news as douche play of the week.

As for the whole letter writing?

It doesn't work. you'll get a nice form letter with a stamped signature, and they will basicly tell you the same thing.

"You are a valued consumer. keep up the great work. "
You are a number to them, and they don't owe you anything. No one owes anyone anything.

Great post, you have alot of good points here and bring a few more nuggets to the conversation aside from taking a dump on a WD and leaving it outside the store.

Hawkins wrote:

Chimera_Calvin wrote:That surely is the argument though? Can an effective response by found?

.

There was a sucsessfull campain waged with White wolf, from the fans. maybe the best start is to find out how they went about pressuring WW.

I think there's a difference between a company basically going bankrupt and a company caving in to neckbeards on the internet. Though the latter certainly likes to think it's responsible for the former. GW is doing better than it was a year ago, you should have organized when it wasn't successfully recovering.

If it was not him directly, then at him and the others in general consensus for dipping thier beaks into someone elses till and getting into a conflict of interest. period. On one hand its cutting off the nose to spite the face, on the other, its GW's buisness as usual stance when they see a competition.
Instead of working harder to keep buisness, they go after the competition any way they can, and do it however they can get away with. Its war, deal with it. Kill the competitor, you have no competition.

I think it's important to understand that GW doesn't really make money on blood bowl any more, and that it's legal department is semi autonomous. They don't really care about the blood bowl community because it's insignificantly small, has been violating copyright laws for years, and plays a game that GW no longer profits from. They are a company, not six dudes in an apartment making fun games for their broskies.

shum: the kreig with WW lasted years, i wouldnt say there is no parellel, in fact its the best model we have for a sucsessful campain by fans against an idiot company. the fans won (or at least forced WW to see its point of view) making money isnt a point, if you hit them in the other games they will feel it, how we do that is look into what worked in the past, adapt it to our situation and then red hot poker it into GW.

shum: the kreig with WW lasted years, i wouldnt say there is no parellel, in fact its the best model we have for a sucsessful campain by fans against an idiot company. the fans won (or at least forced WW to see its point of view) making money isnt a point, if you hit them in the other games they will feel it, how we do that is look into what worked in the past, adapt it to our situation and then red hot poker it into GW.

Yes, it lasted for years until market forces largely driven by an ineffectual plan for future profitability drove WW to restructure. You mistake a symptom for a cure, fans were pissy and complained because of issues, but those issues are what caused the financial troubles in the first place, not the fans. More people quit than complain online. A lot more. The fix may have occurred largely to supplicate WWs audience, but that audience is and would always be far, far, larger than a few loud fat dudes on the internet alone. The interesting thing about the internet is it's ability to magnify complaints without a point of reference. What you are doing is looking at a situation that is not well documented, nor particularly well reasoned, and now you're somehow trying to apply it to another company which is both larger and less vulnerable to the same "tactics". You can not avoid their tertiary products firstly because the numbers buying dawn of war and warhammer online are a different group than the numbers buying models, which is in turn different than the group buying the RPGs. There is overlap, but not so much as to cause the dissatisfaction of one group effecting the others. Getting down to real truths, the blood bowl community is small, loud, and unimportant. They do not effect the GW bottom line. The 40k line is better and more fun than it has been in 15 years right now, and while more expensive it's clearly a model thats continuing to work for them. Fantasy is about to turn over to a new edition and appears to be doing well on its own. Their games are selling fairly well (except for WAR which never got much traction, but it still soldiering on) and they have a good selling RPG line continuing to succeed.

You can't succeed because your only real point of traction, the dickish way GW handles blood bowl, is quite simply unimportant. Little timmy and joe friday don't give a damn, that game stopped being sold in stores a decade ago and they probably haven't ever even seen it played. Vote with your wallets and stop buying, thats all well and good, but attempting a campaign to tear down the business is simply doomed to failure. They're a public company, they don't care.

ok. i disagree. i went thru the WW Kreig era as a member of the Cam i dont see it the way you do, but fair is fair. im saying the outline that was used against WW is a starting point to look at. as need, change it and modify it to fit todays GW. apply what works, keep going till you have a model that forces GW to take notice, and use it ruthlessly. your post is all about how the ol WW cant be used today. i agree. it needs to be modified. and the first step in that is to look into why WW came around to acknowlage its fans. if its valid, then its something to look into.

WE need only to talk with those that were heading the anti WW campain. not hard considering the forums out there.

note the words please:, starting point, modify, first step.

Holy cripes. I actually have to agree with Shuma on this. Yeah Shuma, I'm shocked as well that I agree with you on something.

Shuma does sum up the situation in a good way. GW doesn't care about people pissed about BB as that is such a small group of people and contrary to what many Dakkaites believe Dakka community does not make up the GW fan base as a whole. Let's assume the player base worldwide is around 2 million gamers (again, just pulling this out because I don't think there is any hard record anywhere of the number of players). I'm willing to bet that if you compiled ALL the members of all the GW fan sites on the internet it would number maybe 10% of that, add in the lurkers and lets assume 15% of the GW fan/player base visits online forums. So, 15% of GW fan base reads or posts in response to what GW does on a daily basis. Let's assume that 8% of all forum goers get pissed enough to quit over lets say a 6 month period to be generous. For every 1 "veteran" that quits 3 more newbs will probably take his/her place. So in the end GW is gaining more people than it loses and assuming my numbers are accurate (and they won't be, I make no claim to that but nobody knows how many 40k players exist so nobody can dispute my numbers on sound evidence) the most vocal of complainers make up such a minute percentage of the player base that GW just isn't going to care if they quit. I'm the only one in my gaming group that goes on forums and when I mentioned the Bloodbowl thing they were like "who cares? Bloodbowl sucks". So again, Warseer and Dakka and BoLS and 40K online do not make up the majority or all of the player base like some hot-headed individuals like to tout.

It would be akin to people who like bottled water protesting against Coca-Cola for no longer selling their brands of bottled water. Coca-cola will not feel the loss in sales that hard (they'd maybe still feel it) that it would impact them as a company enough to start caring about the fact that a small percentage would stop buying their product altogether as the majority of their sales is from the sales of their main product; Coca-Cola.

But your assuming that were just not buying BB, and thats not the case, the fact is that most of the boycott has already targeted 40k and fantasy. and your also assuming that the letters and boycott are the only avenues availible.
My stance is to find otherpoints of leverage and use em. what works becomes a nail, what really works becomes a spike, that sort of thing. why would you say something will only fail when it hasnt been tried yet? asking question, gathering intel and setting up a model are all things that should be done.
and your saying 'no. it cant work, no, no way'. Even before its been looked into. sorry i dont agree, you dont shoot the horse before its even out of the gate. at least wait till its fallen and broken a leg.

er, nocant really get into it like the OP stated. If you really want to push back....stop buying and convince everyone around you to stop buying. Its the only real way they'd even remotely listen.

There's always been a crowd of people trying to spark or convince others of boycotting. Whether its price hikes or the flavor of the last couple of months about a game no one really cared about aka Blood Bowl; forum users don't need much to post their passionate discontent. You also see this on basically every other forum around as well.

As a customer, GW seems to have been doing well and have only given me more reasons to stick around like the improvement in model and rules quality particularly for the IG. Space Hulk, Planetstrike, and all the other new stuff are high quality and fun additions. I like that the US GW has an enticing grand prize for the best overall tournament player and that they're coming out with a 40k movie and more video games.

As long as they keep making bad ass models like the Valkyrie, upcoming Trygon, Space Hulk models, etc. - they'll do well. Especially considering that guys like Privateer offer so little value by comparison (worse models, no stores, less variety, smaller network of gamers, etc. all at a similar price to GW...no thanks!).

carmachu wrote:er, nocant really get into it like the OP stated. If you really want to push back....stop buying and convince everyone around you to stop buying. Its the only real way they'd even remotely listen.

Been doing this alot.

Hawkins wrote:

carmachu wrote:er, nocant really get into it like the OP stated. If you really want to push back....stop buying and convince everyone around you to stop buying. Its the only real way they'd even remotely listen.

Been doing this alot.

You and me both. I just dont buy, have plentty to trade for or buy used on ebay. *shrug*

Like the game, hate the company.

The thing is the GW boycott is going to fail before it starts. GW might see a dip in profits for one quarter or even for one month but when those few that leave are replaced by more that come into the GW fold then that profit dip will be a profit gain and GW will just attribute it to a bad month or just a normal market fluctuation.

Ford doesn't profit every month, I'm positive their monthly, let alone quarterly profits fluctuate and it's something that the bookkeepers are not going to panic over. Now if Fords quarterly profits drop by 30% they might panic but as has been stated earlier a single digit percentage of the player base not buying GW for 2 months is not going to be noticed by the bookkeepers working for GW.

It would take the vast majority of the player base boycotting GW to make an impact and like I said, the majority of Dakka is NOT the majority of the worldwide player base. Dakka does not even HAVE the majority of the player base as members so 60% of Dakka complaining is probably about 8% of the worldwide player base complaining (maybe fewer as I'm just trying to be generous for dakkas benefit).

Fateweaver wrote:

It would take the vast majority of the player base boycotting GW to make an impact and like I said, the majority of Dakka is NOT the majority of the worldwide player base. Dakka does not even HAVE the majority of the player base as members so 60% of Dakka complaining is probably about 8% of the worldwide player base complaining (maybe fewer as I'm just trying to be generous for dakkas benefit).

Also worth noting that despite the amount of negative-GW posts; the amount of traffic for threads that focus on upcoming GW stuff like the Nids seems to outscore their negative counterparts by a lot if that means anything.

*shrug* Well score for score, i feel better for doing something, rather than nothing at all and will continue to tread on GW whenever and however i can till febuary. (perhaps longer if there really arent any results) truth to tell your arguments just make we want to do more, and more. and as ive said in other posts, there are a lot of better alternatives to spending money on GW. You might disagree. but that really doesnt effect my stance against GW.

lets face it all comes down to spending, cut the spending even a lil and you cost GW and thats really the heart of it, cost them profit, pay them back for the poor way they treat the customer and people like Tom by choosing not to give them money.

So thanks and keep it up i think i need the negitive energy to give me that extra push.

Nuff said from me.

So in a nutshell a boycott of GW will never have any effect so long as more people praise GW than hate them (again, nothing that can be disproven except to use Dakka as a model and well that's just a piss poor model to use).

In a nut shell, i belive GW deserves the negitive publicity its been getting. boycott or no, lost money is lost money.

I don't have a huge post count, but here are my two cents:

You talk about influencing GW financially - boycott, shareholding and whatnot. As many of you have pointed out, this side of GWs business is run by bookeepers and venture investors, who will probably not even notice any internet based fan strategy.

But what about the creative end? I'm no expert, but I've noticed that peculiarly for GW, most of the rule material (codices) are made by one man teams. This gives persons like Jervis Johnson and Phil Kelly a lot of influence in how the actual game is going to look. For instance, it seems that the whole "special rules through special characters" thing stems from one man - Jervis.

These developers are the ones I'd like to contact, not the bean counters. My biggest gripes with GW are inconsistent rules and lack of farsight in the design phase, and I think emails with actual creative input would give the biggest bang for the buck. After all, our strength lies in experience with the games, not numbers!

At my newspaper the journalist is the king of the story, not the accountant. I've seen it again and again - readers' input to the editor gets lost in business strategy, while input to the journalist (with tips!) changes what is written and how.

Fateweaver wrote:It would take the vast majority of the player base boycotting GW to make an impact and like I said, the majority of Dakka is NOT the majority of the worldwide player base. Dakka does not even HAVE the majority of the player base as members so 60% of Dakka complaining is probably about 8% of the worldwide player base complaining (maybe fewer as I'm just trying to be generous for dakkas benefit).

I don't even think the majority of Dakka would be willing to boycott GW.

Fetterkey wrote:

Fateweaver wrote:It would take the vast majority of the player base boycotting GW to make an impact and like I said, the majority of Dakka is NOT the majority of the worldwide player base. Dakka does not even HAVE the majority of the player base as members so 60% of Dakka complaining is probably about 8% of the worldwide player base complaining (maybe fewer as I'm just trying to be generous for dakkas benefit).

I don't even think the majority of Dakka would be willing to boycott GW.

Yours is most likely a very accurate statement Fetterkey,similiarly most people in general wouldn't boycott the multitude of fast food establishments no matter how often they are handed incorect orders,convienice outwieghing comitment,and genral complacincy.
Reading many of the nay sayers post,I'm a bit disheartend,not so much concerning a boycott of GW,but of a genral "well that's how business goes..so lump it" attitude in many of them.
Perhaps boycotting GW won't affect them,or in any way shape or form convince them to be a bit more interested and supportive of the paying coustemers who keep their lights running and their wheels turning,however by not opening my wallet and handing my money over to GW, I can feel a little better about the fact that I didn't contribute to them.

Am I the only one that read this thread title as the Great Pan Fo of 2010?

The Pan Fo will not be denied!!!

malfred wrote:Am I the only one that read this thread title as the Great Pan Fo of 2010?

Yes.

I suspect the late night 'mod meths sessions' are having an undesirable effect on your eyesight...

As mother used to say 'If you keep doing that, you'll go blind'...






(my response was, of course, 'Can I keep doing it till I need glasses?')

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

malfred wrote:Am I the only one that read this thread title as the Great Pan Fo of 2010?

Yes.

I suspect the late night 'mod meths sessions' are having an undesirable effect on your eyesight...

As mother used to say 'If you keep doing that, you'll go blind'...






(my response was, of course, 'Can I keep doing it till I need glasses?')

Caught by your mother? MGS, you need to put a lock on your door. And draw the shades on
your windows.

malfred wrote:

Caught by your mother? MGS, you need to put a lock on your door. And draw the shades on
your windows.

Well there was that time, sony walkman playing full blast, that on opening my eyes after 'the vinegar strokes' there was a nice cup of tea left on my bedside table...

malfred wrote:And draw the shades on your windows.

Why would his mother be looking in from the window? That's just creepy...

H.B.M.C. wrote:

malfred wrote:And draw the shades on your windows.

Why would his mother be looking in from the window? That's just creepy...

Maybe she was inside, looking out.

Lets hope MGS keeps it inside the house...public nakedness and all not withstanding.

I'm not denying people the satisfaction of making themselves feel better by not feeding some "evil" corporation. If it makes you feel better than that is all that counts. It's just a futile effort to think it's going to make a huge impact.

If 60% of ALL GW customers boycotted for 2 months they'd feel an impact but I'm willing to bet that not even 5% could commit that much and 5% of the gamers not buying anything WILL go unnoticed by the bean counters. Markets fluctuate and that is what it'll be written off as; market fluctuation. Not to mention when the 2 month boycott ends (as it apparently is set to due February 1st) many people will go back to buying as per normal or in the case of Tyranid players will just spend that much more in February. Result: A jump in sales for GW in February and March rendering the little 5% loss in revenue even more of an anomaly/market flux by the GW bean counters.

If he closes the shades and has a light behind him, he can put on a strange sort of puppet show...

Fateweaver wrote:Lets hope MGS keeps it inside the house...public nakedness and all not withstanding.

I'm not denying people the satisfaction of making themselves feel better by not feeding some "evil" corporation. If it makes you feel better than that is all that counts. It's just a futile effort to think it's going to make a huge impact.

I don't really consider GW "evil",I basicly see them as indifferent concerning their "fan base" and more or less profit chassing.
What bothers me most is that GW doesn't have to practice business this way,it chooses to practice business this way.
As a leading producer of TTWG minis/etc,GW could easily maintain a healthy bottom line while still showing more interest in "coustumer satisfaction/relations",it's a shame their "bean counters" don't seem to get this or care.

Couldn't expect my last post to be taken seriously and don't blame others for not doing so either...sorry for bad post.

Anyway, there just doesn't seem like a way for a unified front. Don't not do something but realize we all need to take some kind of action in order to make something happen and it may just have to be in our own way. So whatever you do, as long as you don't hurt people, do something. If you want mail/email them (in triplicate per corporate suit), do so. If you are boycotting them, let everyone know in your signature. If you buy all of you GW stuff from ebay then list the auction number in your signature. Keep a tally of money spent on other miniature companies and GW in your signature. There is tons of other ways to do something to get your message across. If you just don't want to do anything please be respectful of those who do and not try to derail their efforts.

FITZZ wrote:

Fateweaver wrote:Lets hope MGS keeps it inside the house...public nakedness and all not withstanding.

I'm not denying people the satisfaction of making themselves feel better by not feeding some "evil" corporation. If it makes you feel better than that is all that counts. It's just a futile effort to think it's going to make a huge impact.

I don't really consider GW "evil",I basicly see them as indifferent concerning their "fan base" and more or less profit chassing.
What bothers me most is that GW doesn't have to practice business this way,it chooses to practice business this way.
As a leading producer of TTWG minis/etc,GW could easily maintain a healthy bottom line while still showing more interest in "coustumer satisfaction/relations",it's a shame their "bean counters" don't seem to get this or care.

I don't mean "You" as in YOU Fitzz. I'm referring to everyone that things GW is evil and that a 2 month boycott by a single digit portion of the fanbase won't make a significant impact.

malfred wrote:

Caught by your mother? MGS, you need to put a lock on your door. And draw the shades on
your windows.

I just listen for steps on the basement stairs.

Fateweaver wrote:

FITZZ wrote:

Fateweaver wrote:Lets hope MGS keeps it inside the house...public nakedness and all not withstanding.

I'm not denying people the satisfaction of making themselves feel better by not feeding some "evil" corporation. If it makes you feel better than that is all that counts. It's just a futile effort to think it's going to make a huge impact.

I don't really consider GW "evil",I basicly see them as indifferent concerning their "fan base" and more or less profit chassing.
What bothers me most is that GW doesn't have to practice business this way,it chooses to practice business this way.
As a leading producer of TTWG minis/etc,GW could easily maintain a healthy bottom line while still showing more interest in "coustumer satisfaction/relations",it's a shame their "bean counters" don't seem to get this or care.

I don't mean "You" as in YOU Fitzz. I'm referring to everyone that things GW is evil and that a 2 month boycott by a single digit portion of the fanbase won't make a significant impact.

I agree with you concerning the efectivness (or lack thereof) of a 2 month ,small number boycott,I honestly doubt it will even register on GWs radar.
However,I stand by my previous statement concerning GW business practices,and wonder that if GW continues their current practices if future "boycotts" will be short termed or small numbered.
At some point GW must concern itself with it's fanbase,it simply makes good business sense.
Or perhaps I'm wrong and GW can continue to sale happily along on the funding of adolecent/new player dollars.

I guess we'll find out in the future. In the meantime I'm going to keep pumping money into their corporate account to fund my Tyranid army.

No other mini manufacturers make minis that look as good as the Tyranids and I am not about to start getting rid of armies because of something they've done to some fan sites for a game I have no desire, nor ever had a desire to play.

Call me selfish or a fanboi but it is what it is.

Fateweaver wrote:I guess we'll find out in the future. In the meantime I'm going to keep pumping money into their corporate account to fund my Tyranid army.

No other mini manufacturers make minis that look as good as the Tyranids and I am not about to start getting rid of armies because of something they've done to some fan sites for a game I have no desire, nor ever had a desire to play.

Call me selfish or a fanboi but it is what it is.

Eh. Mine was a sad slow decline from a game that interested me at one point and reall stopped
at another point. However, I'd probably be back if I hadn't found other games to supplant
40k's place in my interest. I guess I just wish I enjoyed the game more than I do. I mos'
def' like the look of the models still after all these years.

It's good that not everyone is quitting over how a company treats it's customers.

You'd think some people would stop driving cars or buying gas or eating out at diners/cafe's/fast food joints if they let corporations eat at them this much.

I don't like how oil companies overjack fuel prices but I'm not about to bike everywhere (and living in a state where it snows 7 months out of the year and being 8 miles from town I'm not about to walk or bike) just to "stick it to the man". Everyone in the US saw the epic fail of the "great one day gas strike that saw oil companies lowering the price of crude oil".....errm, wait it did no such thing.

Good to see not everyone is knee jerking themselves into a torn ACL or a broken nose from jerking your knee into your face.

Fateweaver wrote:I guess we'll find out in the future. In the meantime I'm going to keep pumping money into their corporate account to fund my Tyranid army.

No other mini manufacturers make minis that look as good as the Tyranids and I am not about to start getting rid of armies because of something they've done to some fan sites for a game I have no desire, nor ever had a desire to play.

Call me selfish or a fanboi but it is what it is.

I wouldn't call your actions selfish,you like the minis,you aren't bothered by GWs business practices and you choose to purchase the items you want,that's personal freedom and I'm in support of that.
And hell,even I don't intend to light my current armies on fire and hurl them from my window in some halfassed protest of GWs current practices,but barring the Forgeworld stuff my GF bought for me for Christmas (she was unaware of the "boycott"),I choose to not keep pumping my money into GWs corporate account.
Guess we can just agree to disagree....much like the whole Chaos codex affair.

Ah yes. I do love the CSM codex threads. More excuses for those who think dakka represents all the chaos players in the world to call those of us who logically point out that isn't the case fanboys and apologists.

Always a laughing good time.

I wish I had a gf nice enough to buy me FW stuff. Feth it all, I wish I had a gf. LOL.

So far, the community as represented is split between "this won't work", "this has already been done", "I don't care enough" and variants thereof making up the large majority - at least to my reading. For myself, I will continue on the path so many before me and after me have followed: I'll stop purchasing things from GW, and build the massive stockpile of things I already have acquired.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As a side note, I really enjoyed Grot6's meandering post that claimed that the CEO, who makes a lousy 400k USD a year, essentially runs the illuminati and that they'd "come after me" somehow.

I've already written GW, and plan on doing it again now that LRB6 has been released.

I don't think a boycott would work. I wouldn't be willing to participate. However, I'm changing my spending priorities. I've decided to help get a Malifaux group going at my FLGS, so there is the primary source of my gaming spending.

Second, I have to get my Cygnar list finished. Then, I'll be putting together a competitive and a 'fun' Troll list. (I like Borca, probably not going to win me a lot; but I'll have fun losing.)

Third, terrain supplies.

What I have left, that I will spend on GW. This is what I have outlined in the letter that I have sent them. It also makes my desire to continue building my Skaven, Ork, and Space Wolf armies an attainable goal. It will just take longer, most likely much longer.

As for those advocating that fans can have no effect on GW, then take some of your own advice. We're fanatics that will continue to do what we will. No argument, no matter how oft repeated, will deter us from doing something. Your best hope is to get us to do the same thing at the same time. If you can't manage that, then don't waste your time.

Ouze wrote:So far, the community as represented is split between "this won't work", "this has already been done", "I don't care enough" and variants thereof making up the large majority - at least to my reading. For myself, I will continue on the path so many before me and after me have followed: I'll stop purchasing things from GW, and build the massive stockpile of things I already have acquired.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As a side note, I really enjoyed Grot6's meandering post that claimed that the CEO, who makes a lousy 400k USD a year, essentially runs the illuminati and that they'd "come after me" somehow.

Don't be a douche, I didn't claim anything of the sort.

All I said was that they are serious businessmen who know exactly what they are doing. Aside from the fact that your GW euros, pounds, and dollars are going to more then just one buisness interest, This community doesn't have the inherent discipline to match wits with a multinational company on thier terms.

Serious considerations would be to fight them with that so called boycott bucks by buying sufficient stock and sending a serious representative to a few of thier stockholders meetings, the represetative being known by thier organization, and gaining sufficient support from other shareholders to make a motion. When you get the motion, you stick with it, stay unemotional about it, and make it happen. The thing that would be the hardest would be for people to get a general consensus of what they actually want to do, AND STICK WITH IT.

These guys know how to make money, they have a sufficent amount of private industrial pull from major players, and a strong history of relationships from this particular university. You want to be stupid, and not look at the facts at hand thats on you. probibly unlike you, I know how these kind of people think. You need to want to make money too, and sometimes that is going to have to be to make some hard choices, but they arn't personal. They are choices to make freakin money.

You don't do anything major alone. And what people here want to do, even if they are not coming out and saying it is that they want to walk up in there, tell these guys that they are pissed at some of thier decisions, and that they want something done about it.
You really want to do something like that you pull sufficent capitol together and make a single direct action or position. You don't go it at ten thousand different NONcapitol making decisions.

As for that "This won't work," "That won't work," What works is making a plan, figuring out what to do, and just doing it. You want to make an impact on someone that is making more then you are? Then you do it with sufficient force. either by Money or Power. If you don't go to thier school, then no one knows you, or no one can vouch for you. You arn't one of the "Cool Kids" so to speak, so what else can you do?
You get a group of investors together, get a rep that will work with you, and make what you want to happen, happen.

Money talks, BS walks.

The inferred collaberations, relationships, and history is there. If you want to refute it, by all means, what have YOU got? Do you have some special nuggets on how a corperation works? Do you think that that is NOT how they do things? Maybe you think that these guys are "faceless numbers crunchers" that don't have families, jobs, and expenses of thier own? These guys know each other. they sit around, make some conversations abotu how this works, that works, and then they make motions and make it happen and with sufficient shareholder support, it happens.

Supply- Demand.

They have a product that people want, they ask a price, you will either pay for it.... or you won't.

There's a very important fact about boycotting retail product that you people do not seem to realize. When you cease buying their product, you don't hurt GW at all. Their income is not based on your purchases. If 1000 people in 1000 communities around the world stop buying GW product, they will not even notice. Not because they could care less, but because they can't see it in the sales figures. The money you spend on GW (or any other retail product) goes to the store owner and that's it. Here's how it works:

1: GW sets a cost for their product that they offer to the retailer.
2: The retailer buys the product in bulk at the set cost.
3: This is where terms like "got it at cost" comes from. You paid the retailer's 'cost' price for the product.
4: The product comes with a MSRP (Manufacturere's Suggested Retail Price).
5: The retailer marks up the product a certain % over cost.
6: This percentage is called 'profit'.
7: You purchase the product from the retailer at the store-marked price.
8: Retailer makes the profit.

Now then, GW makes it's money at step #2. Anything after step #2, GW doesn't know about, care about, worry about, or deal with. They are DONE with that particular batch of product now. Any purchases of GW product by an end user after step #2 is exactly the same. It doesn't matter if you buy it online, ebay, FLGS, next-door-neighbor, or trade for it on Bartertown. It's all the same to GW because they already made the money on every one of those sets/kits/models.

Imagine, if you will, that you have a gaming community in your town that is made up of 100 players on the nose. All 100 of you have only ONE store to buy from. Nobody else in town carries gaming stuff. Now then, that store owner stocks his shelves by stocking what his customer base is buying. Per the contract between him and GW, he has to buy x amount of each boxed set, x amount of each model kit, x amount of each army book or peripheral, x amount of everything he buys from them, at a fixed price per unit.

*STOP*

GW just made it's money and now walks away.


If only ONE of those 100 customers stops buying GW stuff from the FLGS, it will not impact the store owner's monthly GW purchase. Therefore, GW will not be hurt one bit if you stop buying their product. It will take your WHOLE gaming community to even begin to remotely start resembling something that might one day look like a situation that GW might notice.

If you multiply that imaginary 100-person community by 100,000 communities globally, that means that a mere 100,000 out of 10,000,000 (TEN MILLION) people worldwide stop buying GW product. Only 100,000 out of TEN MILLION. GW, just like any other large, multi-national corporation simply cannot see that small. They don't even notice those numbers.

Why not?

Recap:

The retailer already bought xx number of bulk product at cost. GW just made their money.
100,000 boycotters world-wide stopped buying GW product and all they accomplished is taking $xx.xx a month out of their FLGS owner's pocket/mouth/hands/etc.


This thread (and all the ones before) aren't even in the same ballpark as the 100,000 person mark. These silly boycott threads, while all mooshy and retro-activist do absolutely no good. There might be around 50-60 of you, spread out across threads like this all over the globe, willing to stop buying GW stuff. Out of those 50-60 people, maybe 30 of them will actually stop buying. Out of those 30 psuedo-idealists, maybe 15 will stick to it for more than a month or so. Out of them, 10 of them likely just don't see anything they need/want right now.




Ghidorah

Gid, your so wrong it hurts just thinking about where you learned about buisness.
lets educate you a bit and pick an example.
tomb king on charriot box. (cause i have it handy withthe origional price and notes attached about the price)
(and these are actual numbers all confirmable except for #1 but you can make an educated guess using markup. )
buying and seller aside. heres where you go wrong.



this is a better discription.
1.GW manufactors a box at the rough cost of 6 €
2. GW then sets a sales price for retailers, in this case exactly 10.97€ (fact) (GW doesnt give deals for bulk buying. at least not in europe.)
3. Retailer buys it and adds his or her own markup, usually the price ends up as just over or under double of the buying price. (FACT all retailers do this, there are very few exceptions, period. (i confirmed this with 2 stores in canada and 1 store in austria) this is not called profit this is called mark up. profitt is something else entirely and there are much more factors, such as over head. (but lets not get bogged down here.)
4. box now costs 19.90€ (fact)

if 10 persons do not buy 10 new shiny boxes of tomb kings when they come out, then they sit in the shop (over head) no one makes a proffit but GW at this point, and now heres the thing. if no one buys the boxes, then there is no reason buy more boxes of tomb kings. so if 10 people HAD bought boxes then the store would probably have ordered in as stock was needed, maikng GW more money.

IF YOU boycott, you deniggh GW the chance to sell more stock period. so it works, you effect GW making money how ever small or large.

in the future please dont assume you know how GW, or any retailer makes money without checking it. its annoying.

It's best not to worry about. It's either that you are still connected to the GW bandwagon or you are not. Buying alternate and telling others about your bad experiences with GW is about all you can legally do to any effect. (tongue in cheek): you could always harrass the kids in GW with that sulphur based "stink" spray. I'm sure it'd only take 1 or 2 visits and parents would never let their kids near that "gamer stench" store again. 3 stores x many kids = impact

actually you could always target the 12 year olds, challenge them to a match and then sytimatically destroy them both on the feild and mentally till they roll into a ball on the floor. turn to next kid and say 'your next'
rinse and repeat till no kids come to the club. cut the play area off from the kids, kill GW proffit.

but thats mean.. and id never sink that low..... well ok there was that one time... but the kid kept buggy me... and well......

Targeting kids and parents is an excellent idea if you could find a proper way of doing it without harming the child in any way. no matter how sick GW is, WE cant screw with kids is what im saying..... parents however......

Maybe the starting point for action can be Black Library. Thinking about MULTILAZORS and Landraiderbacks maybe petition them to get in some proof readers to check their works before publishing. Decry the lack of quality.

Hawkins wrote:
this is a better discription.
1.GW manufactors a box at the rough cost of 6 €
2. GW then sets a sales price for retailers, in this case exactly 10.97€ (fact) (GW doesnt give deals for bulk buying. at least not in europe.)
3. Retailer buys it and adds his or her own markup, usually the price ends up as just over or under double of the buying price. (FACT all retailers do this, there are very few exceptions, period. (i confirmed this with 2 stores in canada and 1 store in austria) this is not called profit this is called mark up. profitt is something else entirely and there are much more factors, such as over head. (but lets not get bogged down here.)
4. box now costs 19.90€ (fact)

if 10 persons do not buy 10 new shiny boxes of tomb kings when they come out, then they sit in the shop (over head) no one makes a proffit but GW at this point, and now heres the thing. if no one buys the boxes, then there is no reason buy more boxes of tomb kings. so if 10 people HAD bought boxes then the store would probably have ordered in as stock was needed, maikng GW more money.

IF YOU boycott, you deniggh GW the chance to sell more stock period. so it works, you effect GW making money how ever small or large.

in the future please dont assume you know how GW, or any retailer makes money without checking it. its annoying.

The FLGS is impacted more than GW. The affected store now has dead stock sitting on their shelves affecting B: cash flow and B: bottom line. GW is better able to absorb losses in sales than the FLGS. No matter if the independant sells an alternative their bottom line is worse off than before (The store has to sell more than double the amount of alternatives to make up for the loss).

IF you need to satisfy your GW fix It would be better to Boycott GW stores and buy more from independant retailers FLGS, the internet etc.

absolutely. but a full boycott has a better impact. zero money = loss, as employees have to be paid, overhead, taxes. 20 other small things. so a full stop hurts, and GW has its own stores. im sure they rent at least in some places. its an avalanche effect.

the more people not buying every where, the more GW losses money.

(i can here the 'boycotts dont work' flamers and trolls a commin..... *gets out the popcorn*)

Hawkins wrote:Gid, your so wrong it hurts just thinking about where you learned about buisness.
lets educate you a bit and pick an example.
tomb king on charriot box. (cause i have it handy withthe origional price and notes attached about the price)
(and these are actual numbers all confirmable except for #1 but you can make an educated guess using markup. )
buying and seller aside. heres where you go wrong.



this is a better discription.
1.GW manufactors a box at the rough cost of 6 €
2. GW then sets a sales price for retailers, in this case exactly 10.97€ (fact) (GW doesnt give deals for bulk buying. at least not in europe.)
3. Retailer buys it and adds his or her own markup, usually the price ends up as just over or under double of the buying price. (FACT all retailers do this, there are very few exceptions, period. (i confirmed this with 2 stores in canada and 1 store in austria) this is not called profit this is called mark up. profitt is something else entirely and there are much more factors, such as over head. (but lets not get bogged down here.)
4. box now costs 19.90€ (fact)

if 10 persons do not buy 10 new shiny boxes of tomb kings when they come out, then they sit in the shop (over head) no one makes a proffit but GW at this point, and now heres the thing. if no one buys the boxes, then there is no reason buy more boxes of tomb kings. so if 10 people HAD bought boxes then the store would probably have ordered in as stock was needed, maikng GW more money.

IF YOU boycott, you deniggh GW the chance to sell more stock period. so it works, you effect GW making money how ever small or large.

in the future please dont assume you know how GW, or any retailer makes money without checking it. its annoying.

I believe this to be about what I heard from my FLGS.

I was told, to be taken with a grain of salt, by a friend who ran a FLGS here in Kalamazoo, Michigan that the mark-up profit of GW stuff is very little. GW sells the models at their wholesale price, which is high to begin with, and then has the mark-up price already figured out for the FLGS. This mark up between wholesale and retail is so little it almost does not make it worth carrying to begin with. Then on top of it GW wants you to order a certain monetary amount when you do order, not unreasonable. It does become unreasonable when what you make off the product is so little that just having them on the shelf is costing you money. So literally if GW stuff does not move fast enough the money has already been lost.

If you convince your FLGS wasting the space to carry GW products is costing them more money then they make off it they might be willing to stop. This will hurt GW and will open up shelf space for other products that will move more and not cost money just to sit on the shelf. This benefits the FLGS overall since now they can devote that space to something else that might move better then GW products.

Boycotting a FLGS will only really hurt, if it does hurt, the store for a short period. They have the option of just stop carrying the product which I am sure GW would love since they want to be all about their stores as your source for "GW fun".

Than the FLGS closes down if it's major source of profit was GW games and now people have no jobs.

Yes, such an awesome plan. Buy from the FLGS, just don't buy direct from GW as not buying from the brick and mortar hurts them more than it hurts GW to not buy at all.

ProtoClone wrote:

I believe this to be about what I heard from my FLGS.

I was told, to be taken with a grain of salt, by a friend who ran a FLGS here in Kalamazoo, Michigan that the mark-up profit of GW stuff is very little. GW sells the models at their wholesale price, which is high to begin with, and then has the mark-up price already figured out for the FLGS. This mark up between wholesale and retail is so little it almost does not make it worth carrying to begin with. Then on top of it GW wants you to order a certain monetary amount when you do order, not unreasonable. It does become unreasonable when what you make off the product is so little that just having them on the shelf is costing you money. So literally if GW stuff does not move fast enough the money has already been lost.

If you convince your FLGS wasting the space to carry GW products is costing them more money then they make off it they might be willing to stop. This will hurt GW and will open up shelf space for other products that will move more and not cost money just to sit on the shelf. This benefits the FLGS overall since now they can devote that space to something else that might move better then GW products.

Boycotting a FLGS will only really hurt, if it does hurt, the store for a short period. They have the option of just stop carrying the product which I am sure GW would love since they want to be all about their stores as your source for "GW fun".

Sorry, but you either heard wrong, or someone told you wrong. The info on the markup is wrong, the info on what GW wants you to order is wrong, and many FLGS make a large amount of money off of GW product. Convincing them it isn't is going to be tough if the owner has a even a small amount of brains.

GW product is sold to retailers in the US with a 45% profit margin. This is comparable with most manufacturers and distributors. 99% of the gaming product I recieve for my store has between a 40% and 50% profit margin.

If a store is making a profit on GW and you convince players to quit buying, or the manager to quit ordering, they will lose that profit. And lose it every single month from then on.

This benefits the FLGS overall since now they can devote that space to something else that might move better then GW products.

Thanks for the offer, but I don't feel like selling cocaine, which is about the only thing I could add that would sell better than GW.

You want to hurt GW, and are somehow convincing yourself that hurting your FLGS isn't really hurting them. Nice rationalzation.

Reality Check: The economy sucks, Game Stores have never been overly profitable, and many have already closed in the last year. If you want to support your store, convincing people to NOT BUy is not the answer. Rather than trying to hurt GW, why not go support Warmachine or Flames of War? Help your local store to sell more models, not necessarily GW. Just attacking GW at your local store wont help them.

It certainly wont "only really hurt, if it does hurt, the store for a short period"

Say you have a business and you have a CEO and that CEO just happens to have his home address listed and say you just mailed your complaints directly to his home as he is a registered voter and has to provide his mailing address in order to vote.


Just saying.

Well, maybe.

After the Great Purge of 09 - Others smarter than me have mentioned in a different thread that perhaps we could try actually communicating with GWS. Yes, I know that this has been tried before on an individual level. I'd like to see about doing it in a coordinated way as a community.

The way I see it, here are the steps we need to follow:

1.) Determine if this is even worth doing. Do we as a community even want to, as someone else put it, "Save GWS from themselves"? Rather then just swap to a different game.

I can't really think of another miniature game I'd want to switch too. Maybe FOW but there are not enough people playing that around here to make it worth my while. My FOW figs sit and collect dust.

2.) Determine as a group how much correspondence it would take to potentially make a statement, and aim for that much.

I think sending in a ton of emails/snail mails might help but as long as we as a community keep buying the product I can't see GW changing much. They may see things from a "if it's not broken, why fix it" perspective.

3.) Create a list of gripes. This should be short and easily read, with realistic goals. Issue perhaps would be: lower the price on plastic models (or stop creeping upwards), permit sites to create fan content if they carry a disclaimer, un-maul the LRB6, make a ruling on the deffrolla... I'm sure a few people have other ideas.

These gripes are valid indeed, but all in all I see 2009 as a great year for 40k gamers. I feel that Orks, IG, and SWs were all successes and the new models created for each new codex release were nice. I also think that we can not focus on getting individule rulings from GW on questions like the deff rolla, but we as a community should focus on prodding GW to put out an annual FAQ/rules update either in an issue of white dwarf or as a seperate book. I'd pay 25 dollars for the latest rules updates all combined into a single book that I can use at a casual game/tourney that could put an end to many rules queries that may come up in a game.

4.) Indicate that although this is not a boycott per se, our buying habits have been/will be influenced by their behavior towards the community at large.

Telling GW this will not be enough. We actually have to follow through. Frankly no matter how many times I have told myself that I would not take on any new projects I always go right back and make a purchase.

Just saying that you can get anyones actual mailing physical address from the office of voters registration in most states and its available online for most states now.

Just saying I'd be kind of more responsive to find out why 20 thousand letters showed up to my house instead of some online "petition".

May get a little more attention.

Also, not actually illegal in anyway at all that I know of its not illegal to send a letter to someone.

Hawkins wrote:absolutely. but a full boycott has a better impact. zero money = loss, as employees have to be paid, overhead, taxes. 20 other small things. so a full stop hurts, and GW has its own stores. im sure they rent at least in some places. its an avalanche effect.

the more people not buying every where, the more GW losses money.

(i can here the 'boycotts dont work' flamers and trolls a commin..... *gets out the popcorn*)

Any idea of just how many people it takes to make a boycott of any good work?

Lots. Lots and lots and lots. Indeed, quite possibly more than Han Solo can imagine. And much as I know I'm going to get flamed for this, sadly a website like Dakka, even Portent at it's height (4th largest Web Forum in the world if memory serves), wouldn't be able to get enough people to make a successful boycott.

Please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying don't boycott, or 'lawlz, stop whinging'. Just pointing out that a boycott, without a significant majority on it's side isn't going to achieve anything. Such things need a great deal of people to commit to a sustained avoidance of product.

And nice attempt at demonising people who hold an alternate opinion by labelling them trolls and flameboys before they've even put finger to keyboard in response.

My personal take on what I'm doing to boycott is this:
(and this is how I've decided to show my dislike of recent practices by GW, you follow a certain cricket and let you conscience be your guide!)

In 2010 I am going to get into WM/Hordes and most likely Infinity miniatures, I will collect a team of each according to whichever finally grabs my colossal balls firmly enough. I will also buy miniatures 'for the love of the sculpts' and paint them up...

I will continue to play 40k and return to WHFB (since I've been missing it) and will build my armies from ebay second hand minis AND from companies other than GW - So Avatars of War, Gamezone Miniatures, Enigma and so on will be directly profiting from my purchases, again from nearby retailers if I can source them, online otherwise. I have already purchased all 3 of the Raging Heroes figures.

My wargaming is going to continue. My playing of Warhammer games will continue. GW however, will not profit from me whilst it maintains it's current stance and attitude.

And that's my arrangement, you do what best fits you.

Good gaming friends, happy to play alongside or against you.

Hollismason wrote:Just saying that you can get anyones actual mailing physical address from the office of voters registration in most states and its available online for most states now.

Just saying I'd be kind of more responsive to find out why 20 thousand letters showed up to my house instead of some online "petition".

May get a little more attention.

Also, not actually illegal in anyway at all that I know of its not illegal to send a letter to someone.

Only possible trouble could stem from organisation of such action. Harassment I guess. Dunno though, just speculating. Plus I don't think many courts would worry themselves as long as there were no threats or owt, just criticism.

1. The C&D storm can only be stopped by flagrant cases going to court, where GW will hopefully lose and fork out a scary sum on legal expenses.

2. Again, if you want better rule-making, GWs management are not the guys to speak to. Send your gripes to THE ONE (1) PERSON WRITING THE CODEX.

mikhaila wrote:

ProtoClone wrote:

I believe this to be about what I heard from my FLGS.

I was told, to be taken with a grain of salt, by a friend who ran a FLGS here in Kalamazoo, Michigan that the mark-up profit of GW stuff is very little. GW sells the models at their wholesale price, which is high to begin with, and then has the mark-up price already figured out for the FLGS. This mark up between wholesale and retail is so little it almost does not make it worth carrying to begin with. Then on top of it GW wants you to order a certain monetary amount when you do order, not unreasonable. It does become unreasonable when what you make off the product is so little that just having them on the shelf is costing you money. So literally if GW stuff does not move fast enough the money has already been lost.

If you convince your FLGS wasting the space to carry GW products is costing them more money then they make off it they might be willing to stop. This will hurt GW and will open up shelf space for other products that will move more and not cost money just to sit on the shelf. This benefits the FLGS overall since now they can devote that space to something else that might move better then GW products.

Boycotting a FLGS will only really hurt, if it does hurt, the store for a short period. They have the option of just stop carrying the product which I am sure GW would love since they want to be all about their stores as your source for "GW fun".

Sorry, but you either heard wrong, or someone told you wrong. The info on the markup is wrong, the info on what GW wants you to order is wrong, and many FLGS make a large amount of money off of GW product. Convincing them it isn't is going to be tough if the owner has a even a small amount of brains.

GW product is sold to retailers in the US with a 45% profit margin. This is comparable with most manufacturers and distributors. 99% of the gaming product I recieve for my store has between a 40% and 50% profit margin.

If a store is making a profit on GW and you convince players to quit buying, or the manager to quit ordering, they will lose that profit. And lose it every single month from then on.

This benefits the FLGS overall since now they can devote that space to something else that might move better then GW products.

Thanks for the offer, but I don't feel like selling cocaine, which is about the only thing I could add that would sell better than GW.

You want to hurt GW, and are somehow convincing yourself that hurting your FLGS isn't really hurting them. Nice rationalzation.

Reality Check: The economy sucks, Game Stores have never been overly profitable, and many have already closed in the last year. If you want to support your store, convincing people to NOT BUy is not the answer. Rather than trying to hurt GW, why not go support Warmachine or Flames of War? Help your local store to sell more models, not necessarily GW. Just attacking GW at your local store wont help them.

It certainly wont "only really hurt, if it does hurt, the store for a short period"

Reality check denied: You are right in that it would hurt the FLGS if they are making money off of the GW product. If they are not then it wouldn't hurt them to consider another product be it miniature or whatever.

If GW is selling good for you then don't listen to me, you seem to have gotten a head start , but if it isn't then it would seem wise to consider a different product. In a way I thought I had made the suggestion of replacing GW with a product that would sell as an alternative to just out right not taking your money there.

My suggestion is subject to opinion of course and you don't have to agree with it. Like I said I was going on what I was told by a former FLGS owner and what he had experienced...so he wasn't right, maybe.

My suggestion is subject to opinion of course and you don't have to agree with it. Like I said I was going on what I was told by a former FLGS owner and what he had experienced...so he wasn't right, maybe.

I listened to you. You're just wrong. The info about the discount and other things is way off.

You have second hand information from a owner of small, former, game store owner. Former being a key word, as he closed up, he's upset as anyone would be, and when he griped about something, you heard it, and suddenly it's gospel. "Heard it from a guy who owns a store" is only slightly above "Heard it from a Redshirt".

And yes, I recognize the irony inherent in the statement, since I'm just a "guy that owns a store". But you are hearing it first hand, I am currently in business, have two stores for the last 22 years, talk to several parts of GW US on a weekly basis, and have read and re-read all their terms of business. It's a major part of my business, so I pay very close attention to their business model, the rules on paper, and the rules that aren't on paper.

Let's look at your 'suggestion': Inform the owner of the FLGS that if GW isn't making him money, he should get rid of it and replace it with something else.

Fine, no arguements. A business needs to make money, and stocking a product that doesn't sell won't make them money, and ties up needed cash.

But... if he needs you to tell him that, he doesn't belong in business!

Please also go tell NFL linemen they need to block, and remind birds they need to flap their wings.

-------------

If you want to get rid of GW in a store, go for it. But don't do it by being destructive to your FLGS. Do it by building up other product lines. Go run painting classes, demos, games, leagues, etc for Flames of War, Warmachine, Infinity, whatever. Build up another game, and if GW drops to nothing, then you'll see it disappear.

But if you just go into a store, attack GW, you're not hurting GW-You're hurting your FLGS.

If you cause the store to lose 100.00 in sales, you might cost GW 5.00, and they'll never know. You also take 45.00 out of your FLGS pocket. Since it's probably a single owner, it's directly out of his paycheck. Repeat it enough, and he doesn't get a paycheck, and you lose a store.

Build up other games, don't tear down what's there already. You're pissed at GW, fine, but don't take it out on your local store.

mikhaila wrote:My suggestion is subject to opinion of course and you don't have to agree with it. Like I said I was going on what I was told by a former FLGS owner and what he had experienced...so he wasn't right, maybe.

I listened to you. You're just wrong. The info about the discount and other things is way off.

You have second hand information from a owner of small, former, game store owner. Former being a key word, as he closed up, he's upset as anyone would be, and when he griped about something, you heard it, and suddenly it's gospel. "Heard it from a guy who owns a store" is only slightly above "Heard it from a Redshirt".

And yes, I recognize the irony inherent in the statement, since I'm just a "guy that owns a store". But you are hearing it first hand, I am currently in business, have two stores for the last 22 years, talk to several parts of GW US on a weekly basis, and have read and re-read all their terms of business. It's a major part of my business, so I pay very close attention to their business model, the rules on paper, and the rules that aren't on paper.

Let's look at your 'suggestion': Inform the owner of the FLGS that if GW isn't making him money, he should get rid of it and replace it with something else.

Fine, no arguements. A business needs to make money, and stocking a product that doesn't sell won't make them money, and ties up needed cash.

But... if he needs you to tell him that, he doesn't belong in business!

Please also go tell NFL linemen they need to block, and remind birds they need to flap their wings.

-------------

If you want to get rid of GW in a store, go for it. But don't do it by being destructive to your FLGS. Do it by building up other product lines. Go run painting classes, demos, games, leagues, etc for Flames of War, Warmachine, Infinity, whatever. Build up another game, and if GW drops to nothing, then you'll see it disappear.

But if you just go into a store, attack GW, you're not hurting GW-You're hurting your FLGS.

If you cause the store to lose 100.00 in sales, you might cost GW 5.00, and they'll never know. You also take 45.00 out of your FLGS pocket. Since it's probably a single owner, it's directly out of his paycheck. Repeat it enough, and he doesn't get a paycheck, and you lose a store.

Build up other games, don't tear down what's there already. You're pissed at GW, fine, but don't take it out on your local store.

Like I said in the beginning, "to be taken with a grain of salt" meaning I wasn't taking it as gospel. But it did seem to match what someone else has suggested. But you are telling me what I was told is wrong so it only confirms I should still take it with a grain of salt.

I just want to make it clear to you that I have heard you and considered your special position in this discussion. It does only confirm that maybe this guy I knew who had the FLGS may have had a wild hair up his arse but I am not sure. I may never be...

NP. Sorry for over reacting a bit. It's been way too many 100 hour weeks this season, and no chance to slow down in the future.

mikhaila wrote:NP. Sorry for over reacting a bit. It's been way too many 100 hour weeks this season, and no chance to slow down in the future.

Don't worry about it. =)

Ghidorah wrote:
Now then, GW makes it's money at step #2. Anything after step #2, GW doesn't know about, care about, worry about, or deal with. They are DONE with that particular batch of product now. Any purchases of GW product by an end user after step #2 is exactly the same. It doesn't matter if you buy it online, ebay, FLGS, next-door-neighbor, or trade for it on Bartertown. It's all the same to GW because they already made the money on every one of those sets/kits/models.

Not quite. Your examples are a little too simplistic. For example, if those 100 people you earlier talk about 10 stop buying, then short term the FLGS takes the hit, but then the FLGS(if he's smart) seeing the less demand, orders less stock of items that were going to said people, but now are not.

Further, if billy takes his marine army and puts it on ebay, and someone buys it, thats a ton less models GW just lost out on, to someone looking to start a marine army. Same with a trade site: if billy puts up his tyranids for trade and gets eldar back from Bobby, then both billy and bobby have new armies to play with, and GW saw none of that money for each starting a new army.

But GW don't lose out on the Ebay sale, as unless he models were stolen, the still have their wedge from it. Plus, there is an assumption that the person selling the models is leaving the Hobby, as opposed to clearing out an old army to aid in the purchase of a new one. Same goes for a trade swap of armies. Both armies have been paid for already, so the change of ownership simply does not damage GW at all. Indeed, it is entirely likely that having swapped, Billy and Bobby decide they'd like to make additions to their new force. Thus, going from armies they had lost interest in, or expanded to the point where they had all they wanted, there is now renewed chance of them buying from GW to add to their 'new' force.

As for the FLGS, as Mikhaila illustrates beautifully, if the 10 people joining a boycott just stop spending in the FLGS, then there is a very real risk of the shop going under. Instead, get them to channel their money into a different sysem, that way the FLGS is still supported, and it's GW losing out on a small bit of cash.

For Ebay's and Trades to work, one or both parties would have to be dealing in forged materials. Only then does GW see no money at any poiny. Otherwise the models have been bought and paid for, and since the trade doesn't increase the number of models in circulation, has no effect whatsoever.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:But GW don't lose out on the Ebay sale, as unless he models were stolen, the still have their wedge from it. Plus, there is an assumption that the person selling the models is leaving the Hobby, as opposed to clearing out an old army to aid in the purchase of a new one. Same goes for a trade swap of armies. Both armies have been paid for already, so the change of ownership simply does not damage GW at all. Indeed, it is entirely likely that having swapped, Billy and Bobby decide they'd like to make additions to their new force. Thus, going from armies they had lost interest in, or expanded to the point where they had all they wanted, there is now renewed chance of them buying from GW to add to their 'new' force.

By what standard do you think their not losing out? If billy buys an army on ebay, yes those models GW already has gotten, but GW is not getting any more money if they went to GW of a FLGS to buy the army new. GW loses out worse in a trade situation- instead of billy and bobby buyinga second army, which GW would make money on, their not making any money on a second army purchase.

The only benefit from expansion if they actually buy something. Chances are they may trade out for other things, or buy used at ebay. Either way GW loses.

Consider the 5K-6K of orks I now own: not a single model was purchased new. The bulk, including a stompa, was trade for some sisters I had purchased and gained ages ago, in 3rd-4th edition. PLus bulked out with other trades of marines and chaos and deamons gotten a while back in 4th.

GW lost out on ork sales. Sure the orks were bought earlier, as were the sisters, marines, chaos and deamons. But instead of folks buying new- instead of me buying a new ork army, instead I got it without laying out a cent to GW. No new sales, thats where it hurts.

They may not gain, but that is very different to losing. Who owns what, and how they got it, matters very little as long as the source isn't theft or forgery.

And GW did not, categorically, lose out on Ork sales. SOMEONE bought the Stompa etc you now own, so GW got their share. Unless there is some way of buying models from someone, where you both end up with one, then GW simply have not missed out.

Again, you are also making massive assumptions that those you traded with, be it goods or cash, did not then go on to either expand upon the models they now own, nor use any cash generated to fund a new army.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:They may not gain, but that is very different to losing. Who owns what, and how they got it, matters very little as long as the source isn't theft or forgery.

And GW did not, categorically, lose out on Ork sales. SOMEONE bought the Stompa etc you now own, so GW got their share. Unless there is some way of buying models from someone, where you both end up with one, then GW simply have not missed out.

Again, you are also making massive assumptions that those you traded with, be it goods or cash, did not then go on to either expand upon the models they now own, nor use any cash generated to fund a new army.

They aren't losing, but you are withholding your money from the company. You are making the decision as a consumer to not purchase from the company. You will be buying from someone who no longer wants the miniature.

Bah MDG, let people think that sellers on Ebay are using the money to buy movies and videogames and blow up dates.

Apparently everyone selling on ebay or trader sites intend to never buy GW again and those people trading are going to trade straight up and never expand (which may be so but I'm willing to bet most times it isn't).

Fateweaver wrote:Bah MDG, let people think that sellers on Ebay are using the money to buy movies and videogames and blow up dates.

Apparently everyone selling on ebay or trader sites intend to never buy GW again and those people trading are going to trade straight up and never expand (which may be so but I'm willing to bet most times it isn't).

I certainly don't object to other people doing what they want to with their money.

I will make the decision on what to do with my own.

I'm all for that.

It's just silly to think that selling your army to someone on ebay is going to screw GW out of money. You personally MGS might use the money to buy WM or Infinity or whatever but if the person on the other end decides that the army he bought from you isn't big enough he just might buy some stuff new from GW.

I have no qualms about buying stuff second hand, I'll even buy it painted so long as it's metal but if I buy a second hand army off ebay or somewhere else and I need some new plastic units I'll order through The Warstore to get the plastics I need. I hate stripping plastic (and yes I know how to do it but it's still a pain) so I prefer to buy plastics at least unpainted which most time requires buying new from somewhere.

Do what you want with your minis and money but people are delusional if thinking buying off Ebay is sticking it to GW because GW already made money off that particular unit/model/army. They aren't LOSING money.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:They may not gain, but that is very different to losing. Who owns what, and how they got it, matters very little as long as the source isn't theft or forgery.

And GW did not, categorically, lose out on Ork sales. SOMEONE bought the Stompa etc you now own, so GW got their share. Unless there is some way of buying models from someone, where you both end up with one, then GW simply have not missed out.

Again, you are also making massive assumptions that those you traded with, be it goods or cash, did not then go on to either expand upon the models they now own, nor use any cash generated to fund a new army.

The only one here making massive assumptions is you in trades. Now your just making up that people are buying. I know I havent for the orks, and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. All who trade dont buy more? No. I'm sure some do, but no matter how you slice it, GW is losing out on new sales from ebay and trade sites.

No new sales.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Fateweaver wrote:Bah MDG, let people think that sellers on Ebay are using the money to buy movies and videogames and blow up dates.

Apparently everyone selling on ebay or trader sites intend to never buy GW again and those people trading are going to trade straight up and never expand (which may be so but I'm willing to bet most times it isn't).

I certainly don't object to other people doing what they want to with their money.

I will make the decision on what to do with my own.

But that is the point. Rather than spend £X on GW Firsthand goods, you spend £X on GW Secondhand Goods. The person receiving the money may well go on to spend that same £X, plus possibly more, on GW Firsthand goods. Net result, GW make exactly the same money, had you gone and bought stuff firsthand from them.

Of course here I am assuming that the money from a sale is going to GW, but hey, I'm just trying to explain that buying 2nd hand doesn't really affect GW at all, rather than saying it benefits them.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I will continue to play 40k and return to WHFB (since I've been missing it) and will build my armies from ebay second hand minis AND from companies other than GW - So Avatars of War, Gamezone Miniatures, Enigma and so on will be directly profiting from my purchases, again from nearby retailers if I can source them, online otherwise. I have already purchased all 3 of the Raging Heroes figures.

My wargaming is going to continue. My playing of Warhammer games will continue. GW however, will not profit from me whilst it maintains it's current stance and attitude.

Absolutely this. Apart from playing at GW stores or in tourneys, there is nothing stopping people from building armies out of non-GW products and still playing 40k. Not to sound like a crotchety old fart but the thing that made 40k attractive to me in the first place was the DIY ethos of RT. Rather than a boycott, which might have the unintended consequence of affecting LFGSs - I think the idea of making the game one's own is a more attractive response.

Fateweaver wrote:

Do what you want with your minis and money but people are delusional if thinking buying off Ebay is sticking it to GW because GW already made money off that particular unit/model/army. They aren't LOSING money.

They arent gaining money either, and thats the point. GW already got their money on the first sale. resold means someone who might have bought a new model, didnt.

When someone buys a 2001 chevy privately, Chevy loses out on the sale. If you buy a preowned one on the lot, the dealer makes money, buy ultimately Chevy loses out on a new car sale.

Same principle.

If you buy an army off of eBay and the other person goes and uses the money to buy an army from GW, that still ends up with one army sold by GW instead of two. If they don't go and buy an army from GW, then GW doesn't get any sales. I don't advocate this "boycott," but I feel the need to at least point this out.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:

Fateweaver wrote:Bah MDG, let people think that sellers on Ebay are using the money to buy movies and videogames and blow up dates.

Apparently everyone selling on ebay or trader sites intend to never buy GW again and those people trading are going to trade straight up and never expand (which may be so but I'm willing to bet most times it isn't).

I certainly don't object to other people doing what they want to with their money.

I will make the decision on what to do with my own.

But that is the point. Rather than spend £X on GW Firsthand goods, you spend £X on GW Secondhand Goods. The person receiving the money may well go on to spend that same £X, plus possibly more, on GW Firsthand goods. Net result, GW make exactly the same money, had you gone and bought stuff firsthand from them.

Of course here I am assuming that the money from a sale is going to GW, but hey, I'm just trying to explain that buying 2nd hand doesn't really affect GW at all, rather than saying it benefits them.

Nope, that's missing my point.

I am vetoing the company. I am not purchasing from them. I am buying up what people get rid off. I am not out to bring down the company in one foul swoop, I have simply decided that they won't be getting my hard earned cash any longer, not until they mend their ways, which seems a long way off.

And I am denying them a sale and joining the ranks of those who buy second hand, so there is a financial loss albeit instantly forgettable for the corporation. What will not be instantly forgettable for the corporation is that I will continue to voice my dislike of their actions, others here and elsewhere on the internet will continue to do so.

PS, haven't heard back from your bro yet btw?

Fateweaver wrote:Bah MDG, let people think that sellers on Ebay are using the money to buy movies and videogames and blow up dates.

Apparently everyone selling on ebay or trader sites intend to never buy GW again and those people trading are going to trade straight up and never expand (which may be so but I'm willing to bet most times it isn't).

The orginal owner may very well turn around and buy GW. But again, expanding the army doesnt mean the money goes directly back into GW's pocket either. As myself for example, I've slowly expanded those orks with things, gotten again through trades, and looking at second hand models on ebay(although havent jumped yet).

Every model in that army has been gotten without me spending one dime in either a FLGS, nor going to GW.

That attitude is just hurting the FLGS. GW doesn't give a crap if they don't get $100 from you but your FLGS will feel that, especially if you budget $100/month for GW. $1200/year will be felt by the FLGS more than by GW.

It is why, even when I trade if I must have something fast and at a certain time I'll order from Neal. If I have a tournament in 2 weeks and I need a certain unit I'll spend 2 days checking online for it, if nobody has it online I'll buy it from Neal or GW direct (free shipping means small orders are actually slightly cheaper than ordering through Neal).

Sometimes for me it's a matter of time or patience. I could wait until February to get the new Nid stuff cheaper on bartertown or dakka swap shop or ebay but I don't want to wait that long for the stuff so Neal is going to get an order here in about 7-10 days.

Fetterkey wrote:If you buy an army off of eBay and the other person goes and uses the money to buy an army from GW, that still ends up with one army sold by GW instead of two. If they don't go and buy an army from GW, then GW doesn't get any sales. I don't advocate this "boycott," but I feel the need to at least point this out.

Right hold on peeps. I think we're all digressing. I'll try to make my point as clear as possible.

You have say, a £100 budget to procure a new army, and decide to go down the Ebay and Trades route.

So, you find the bulk of your ideal force on Ebay, and you go to the hilt on the £100.

However, you feel you might need an extra squad and a tank, and being out of your budget, raid your existing collection for tradeable goodies to swap for what you wish to add to the force bought from Ebay. You then do this successfully.

Technically, at this point, GW may not have made money from you procuring your army, BUT, neither have they lost money, as all the models involved, providing they were not stolen or copied, would have been bought from GW, either directly or through a third party trader like an FLGS. Regardless of who now has what, GW has received the monies for them, as no additional models are suddenly in circulation.

Even if you have never, EVER bought a model from GW, and were perhaps given your first bunch (say via a friend leaving the Hobby) they will still have been paid for at some point. And chances are, someone somewhere along the line is going to add to what they now have from the various trades (be it models or cash) with fresh product.

End result is that GW might take slightly less money (should the person who you paid cash only spend some of it on new models) or the same had you spent it yourself on new models (they take your £100, and fund a new army).

I'm not trying to shout you guys down here, just explaining that sadly, claiming trades and Ebay shut GW out completely isn't entirely accurate. Possible, sure, but not incredibly likely overall. Even if all the cash and models you traded in this particular case are used similarly, somewhere down the line that money is likely to be spent in GW on new stuff.

It's the source of the models that are important here. As long as they haven't been stolen, GW has the money. As long as they aren't copies the number of models in circulation has not changed, so who now owns what makes no difference.

Sorry Doc, but we're just still going to disagree. When I bought those sister models, that was way back then-5-9 years ago. Maybe earlier. They got swapped for nice new ork models.

GW made the money call it 7 years ago on the sisters, and loses out to a new sale, at a higher price. The fact that you keep saying they dont lose anything is just silly. They gained nothing, and are losing out on to a new sale, instead gained say via trade.

But we're just going to have to disagree on the point.


And fateweaver....I really really dont care about FLGS. *shrug* Since I have pretty bad ones, and/or they stopped supporting me, so to speak, I see no reason to give them money either.

I think the car analogy was the best here. And for what it's worth, I am on Carmachu and MGS side here; buying from a trade site does hurt GW in a small but insignificant way because that purchase is money that would otherwise have gone straight into GW's pocket. What the vendor of the goods on ebay does is neither here nor there, as has been pointed out, not every seller on ebay is leaving the hobby (although I think a fair few are).

ok so 2 points
A: GW and flgs loose sales from second hand sales from e-bay.
How do you prove it? wheres the check of proof?
simple. GW sold the item (lets call it that) ump-teen years ago. the item was worth x ammount of dollors.
5 years later the origional buyer puts it up on e-bay.
The item in question is still availible to besold by GW or an equvilant model is availible.
some one buys it.
the loss to GW is incured only under one condition, and this is important: would the second buyer purchase from GW if the e-bay item were not there?
if the answer is yes, than GW has 'lost out' (but not 'lost') a sale. indirectly GW has not made money. No they have not lost money, but they havent made either.
in fact the only thing you can safely say for the Symantic nazis out there is that they have made less money than they would if this person purchases online.

now there is a factor here concering Flgs and GW stores.
would the item purchased on e-bay hurt a flgs? yes, because indirectly A flgs relies on persons buying as much from the Flgs as posible. (consider it the model of the revolving door) cash comes in , cash goes out. for a flgs to survive, more has to come in. why? well aside form overhead, and a few other things, a flgs for the most part walks alone and cant absorb loss as well as GW can. simply put if 5 people who spend 200 dollors on average at a flgs go and decide internet is better. the flags will need to either work harder to make its money back, or adjust to the new drop in sales.
another thing: yes a flgs is effect by boycott from GW, but only if the flgs relies on GW for sales, if there is a selection of other brands (AV paints for example) as a alternative, then no flgs does not loose out on sales.
GW because they have a chain of stores can afford loss at one store or 10 becasue the average sales keep all stores running. however (and this is also important) if a store doesnt make a predicted quota in sales month after month, and actually makes less money than it takes to run, then yes that store is gone sooner or later. this can be effected by buying online, or at other outlets, other companies minis, and so on. truth be told, the stores are really the weakest link in GWs chain, they make a huge ammount of proffit, and are the visible and interactive showcase for the company. (ie this is where lil kids get hooked (kinda akin to MC's and Benson&hedges) hook em while there young) (yes i just madea paralelle to fast food, smoking, and gw. so sue me) ok im wandering so on to ......



second point: i forget. something about the intended use of the money gained on e-bay. woah, hard one there to explain, but here goes.
where the money goes after you purchase an item online is totally irrilivent, it cant be quantified by the buyer so has no value or per say intrest to the buyer. if the ebay seller buys gw with the e-bay money, the sales of items from GW simply moves from 1 item sold to 2 (where as there are 3 purchaces, so the money from 3 sales) now its important to note that e-bay sells things cheeply, it the Origional price is say 30 dollors your not going to get more than half back... and that being over optimistic. but lets leave that alone, as it really only effects the ammount made. simply put indirectly, yes GW makes a small precentage if e-bay money is used for purchasing GW.

now hers the kicker. GW makes one sale and looses one sale if the e-bay seller has no intention of buying GW. (origional sale of item oh so many years ago, and the loss of a current sale from the item not being sold by a flgs or gw outlet.)

in closing. yes, intention does effect gw sales when using e-bay, but is darn hard to track and isnt factored into normal buisness stratagy.
Loss is probably the worst word to use in conjuction with the word money here, better to combine with new or sales. GW can loose new sales. but cant loose money from a no sale. they can loose a sale though. and thus not gain the money from that sale. so yes a boycott again can effect GW. thats not the best way to express it though, but i have run outa time the wife exspects the floor washed. and im with Gordo here, play, sure, buy? na, theres better out there.

Well we could always bomb their molding factory. That would send a clear message.

You guys need to stop talking about or they'll get the idea to design their models to self-destruct after 10 games.

agnosto wrote:You guys need to stop talking about or they'll get the idea to design their models to self-destruct after 10 games.

'We've made them biodegradable for the planet's sake! Aren't we good! Unfortunately being one with Mother Earth and carving the soldiers out of potatoes has led to an unforseen opport... necessity to raise the price' touted the Mouth of Kirby, 'Wee' Jervis Johnson, in a recent Standard Bearer... Later giggling 'but the good news is they will taste just fine with a sprinkle of salt and a dash of vinegar! Oh and down with the interwebs!'

filbert wrote:I think the car analogy was the best here. And for what it's worth, I am on Carmachu and MGS side here; buying from a trade site does hurt GW in a small but insignificant way because that purchase is money that would otherwise have gone straight into GW's pocket. What the vendor of the goods on ebay does is neither here nor there, as has been pointed out, not every seller on ebay is leaving the hobby (although I think a fair few are).

I'd agree as well, another good example would be Games companies (as in PC/consoles) I'm pretty sure a lot of them would do anything (and some have been trying) to kill the 2nd hand games market as its money they don't see a penny of. Trading/buying 2nd hand GW is the same deal.

I suppose myself, much like a lot of other people in this thread, are trying to balance the ying and yang of the dilemma. On the one hand, I wish to send a clear message to GW that I dislike their business practices and their disdain and contempt for their consumer base; the only practical way I can do that as a powerless individual is to not buy their products. On the other hand, I don't wish to stop playing GW games. Thus the only practical solution that appeases both sides is to trade second hand. I will continue to play GW games but not a penny more will voluntarily go from my pocket directly to theirs.

Edit: And I don't think that my actions will have any affect whatsoever in the grand scheme of things. The ONLY way a boycott would ever work would be if it were organised, communicated and corralled in the extreme by a large and significant portion of consumers. Direct action does have a history of working but lets be honest, the price of plastic figures is not going to compete much with say, achieving Indian independence a la Gandhi, in peoples affections.

I understand that GW Australia have some sort of moratorium on mentioning on mentioning Ebay purchases (of any kind) in their stores. Can anyone shed any light on this? As I recall a single mentioning of a single purchase (One of the RT Ork books IIRC) had pretty serious consequences.

They threatened their staff with termination if they talked about Space Hulk with customers before it was announced, so GWOZ does a lot of weird things.

filbert wrote:I suppose myself, much like a lot of other people in this thread, are trying to balance the ying and yang of the dilemma. On the one hand, I wish to send a clear message to GW that I dislike their business practices and their disdain and contempt for their consumer base; the only practical way I can do that as a powerless individual is to not buy their products. On the other hand, I don't wish to stop playing GW games. Thus the only practical solution that appeases both sides is to trade second hand. I will continue to play GW games but not a penny more will voluntarily go from my pocket directly to theirs.

Edit: And I don't think that my actions will have any affect whatsoever in the grand scheme of things. The ONLY way a boycott would ever work would be if it were organised, communicated and corralled in the extreme by a large and significant portion of consumers. Direct action does have a history of working but lets be honest, the price of plastic figures is not going to compete much with say, achieving Indian independence a la Gandhi, in peoples affections.

Making sure you focus on playing armies that can easily be traded would make things a lot smoother. Eldar, Orks, Space marines; all of these newer models (plus a few other armies I am sure) can easily find new homes if you want to recycle your armies every year or so. If you are good at converting/painting, selling the models at the price you paid in the first place (probably 50% of retail for most things) will not be a problem at all. There are an awful lot of players that would like nothing more than instant armies, at 50-60% of retail. Even if the models are slightly outdated, none of the newer stuff is going to be entirely 'replaced' anytime soon.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:

filbert wrote:I think the car analogy was the best here. And for what it's worth, I am on Carmachu and MGS side here; buying from a trade site does hurt GW in a small but insignificant way because that purchase is money that would otherwise have gone straight into GW's pocket. What the vendor of the goods on ebay does is neither here nor there, as has been pointed out, not every seller on ebay is leaving the hobby (although I think a fair few are).

I'd agree as well, another good example would be Games companies (as in PC/consoles) I'm pretty sure a lot of them would do anything (and some have been trying) to kill the 2nd hand games market as its money they don't see a penny of. Trading/buying 2nd hand GW is the same deal.

Part of the purpose of digital distribution is to kill the secondhand games trade.

Gordo Phreshmex wrote:

MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I will continue to play 40k and return to WHFB (since I've been missing it) and will build my armies from ebay second hand minis AND from companies other than GW - So Avatars of War, Gamezone Miniatures, Enigma and so on will be directly profiting from my purchases, again from nearby retailers if I can source them, online otherwise. I have already purchased all 3 of the Raging Heroes figures.

My wargaming is going to continue. My playing of Warhammer games will continue. GW however, will not profit from me whilst it maintains it's current stance and attitude.

Absolutely this. Apart from playing at GW stores or in tourneys, there is nothing stopping people from building armies out of non-GW products and still playing 40k. Not to sound like a crotchety old fart but the thing that made 40k attractive to me in the first place was the DIY ethos of RT. Rather than a boycott, which might have the unintended consequence of affecting LFGSs - I think the idea of making the game one's own is a more attractive response.

Thats why the gameing club I run (www.mi40k.com) runs free tournaments that allow DIY models (as long as you can tell what they are supposed to be) and our prizes are always Gift cards for the LFGS that is hosting the tournament....never ever are our prizes GWS products we let the winner decide what he wants. But we also dont do cash prizes because we want to support our various LFGS.

Sounds good R3con. we have similar types of tournaments now that were down to one club and one FLGS.

Hawkins wrote:Sounds good R3con. we have similar types of tournaments now that were down to one club and one FLGS.

The best part of it is....google pays for our tournament prizes

i see.

H.B.M.C. wrote:They threatened their staff with termination if they talked about Space Hulk with customers before it was announced, so GWOZ does a lot of weird things.

If it hadn't been announced, wouldn't that have been related to non-disclosure agreements? Assuming the staff have them, of course.

The staff weren't asked to sign NDA's.

Ok, to help encourage people to keep to the boycott I suggest every participant amends their siggie to show how little of their money has gone to Gw this current year, and where else the hobby money is going.

I am committed to minimising GW spending, which is fairer than promising a 0.0 purchase rate all year. I am ammending my siggie presently....

Hollismason wrote:Just saying that you can get anyones actual mailing physical address from the office of voters registration in most states and its available online for most states now.

Just saying I'd be kind of more responsive to find out why 20 thousand letters showed up to my house instead of some online "petition".

May get a little more attention.

Also, not actually illegal in anyway at all that I know of its not illegal to send a letter to someone.

I like Hollismasons idea, lets all get the 5 most important people at gw and start mailing them with our griefs and complaints, and ask them to shake-a-leg and do something!

Orlanth wrote:Ok, to help encourage people to keep to the boycott I suggest every participant amends their siggie to show how little of their money has gone to Gw this current year, and where else the hobby money is going.

I am committed to minimising GW spending, which is fairer than promising a 0.0 purchase rate all year. I am ammending my siggie presently....

Great idea, than next year on December 31st we can all look back and laugh at how tiny the ripple created in the ocean was.

Because I'm sure GW is going to feel a 2% loss in profits next year.

so far the only thing i have paied $$ for for my entire SOB army was 2 immolarors (added extra whrilwind bits to make them into exorcists).

but all of my 60+ battle sisters and seraphim i have gotten through trading various odds and ends, some GW some not.

so where exactaly is GW making money on my trading? yes, they made money off the GW items i traded when i first bought them, and they made money off the items i recived when they were first bought.

but i did not buy new GW models, nor did the other trader. we both got what we wanted for the price of postage.


i have also built up most of a chaos army like this (will have to buy the forge world deathguard kits), as well as some guard for my battle sisters to kick around.

lets see, for the past year all the GW boxs i have bought i can count on my hands. yup, there making a load off me.

Well, whatever you guys don't spend on GW stuff I will so in the end they get their money.

Have a nid army to bring up to apoc size (currently at 2500 pts) and than depending on what happens in the fall next year maybe DE (and at some point in time build up my daemons and maybe start BA depending on the codex out in april.

Fateweaver wrote:Well, whatever you guys don't spend on GW stuff I will so in the end they get their money.

I'm not spending $100,000 on GW this year.

Get spendin' Fateweaver.

Fateweaver wrote:

Orlanth wrote:Ok, to help encourage people to keep to the boycott I suggest every participant amends their siggie to show how little of their money has gone to Gw this current year, and where else the hobby money is going.

I am committed to minimising GW spending, which is fairer than promising a 0.0 purchase rate all year. I am ammending my siggie presently....

Great idea, than next year on December 31st we can all look back and laugh at how tiny the ripple created in the ocean was.

Because I'm sure GW is going to feel a 2% loss in profits next year.

Obviously you dont understand.

For the record GW would find a 2% drop from any one source catestrophic, as would any company. You have no idea how much 2% is in business terms.

This aside while we wont be able to do much it will send a protest if enough people get on board, or at least commit to what they have already said they will do, which is the harder part. Many grognards agreed posted they agreed and probably promptly forgot. Siggies help reduce that, at least I wont forget.
You know its all about example, and trends follow. if I am alone nothing will happen, if others change their siggies we will quickly get a ripple effect at least here on Dakka.

Remember our intention is to protest our greivances and hiopefully for Gw to realise that it is in their interest to listen to and respect veteran gamers. The idea is not to damage the company, they dont needs us for that. Besides in the billion to one chance our protest did 'bring GW to its knees' it would be a failure not a success, though admittedly a little gratifying to watch.

Gw still thinks it can feth off customers because 'they will come back'. this used to be true as there was nowhere else to go. GW hasnt learned that that is no longer the case, PP shouldn't have had a chance, they grown not so much on their strengths but by adressing GW's weaknesses. look at their business plan and that truth stares back at you, they are the mirror opposite of GW, and that is what makes them strong.

I look at PP for the new shinies.

The new shinies that cost as much as GW's shinies.

People getting annoyed at a C&D (which is the nicest thing GW can do to a person) need to grow a pair. This argument has been beaten to death. I'm not an apologist but I've seen some of these fan sites sent C&D's and I can see maybe why GW has taken an issue with it.

A few hours time could make the site comply with Big Brothers policies but instead of trying to make it work (removing deep links that link to GW servers, removing TM's names from the urls and removing GW trademarked symbols and images) it's easier to spend hours and hours on dakka and bols and b&C and warseer bitching about it.

For those joining the boycott siggie thing, to give perspective why not mention the amount youwould have spent on GW products, as well as the amount you have spent on non-GW modelly goodness?

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Fateweaver wrote:Well, whatever you guys don't spend on GW stuff I will so in the end they get their money.

I'm not spending $100,000 on GW this year.

Get spendin' Fateweaver.

If I had 100K burning a hole in my wallet I probably would.

I'm sure you'll burn 100k posts bitching about the next 6 codeciies and how GW can't write rules to save their lives when none of the fan based ones I've seen are worth the paper written on either.

1. They can't write rules. Hence the hole-filled, typo-ridden celebration of ambiguity that is every 40k rulebook.

2. The fans can do better than GW, it's just that a lot of them don't seem to have a proper grasp of the concept of balance. Then again neither does GW, they willfully make certain units outperform others in order to push models.

I mean you can't argue that the valkyrie/vendetta are anything but underpriced. The trygon/mawloc I imagine will be just as beastly (and cheap) when the Tyranid codex comes out, since they have a new $50 model to sell.

Cor. Imagine that. A PLC looking to make as much money as possible, using all products at their disposal to make sure they get a return on their latest investments.

Has the world gone mad?

I still yet to see a 9 Vendetta NON-APOC army Sid.

The Trygon rules don't impress me much, the Trygon will sell due to "shiny new model syndrome". I mean look at Pyrovores, the awesome JG sculpted plastic WL which got worst in the latest codex. Obviously those rules weren't written to sell models or you'd see Eldar armies spamming WL's in heavy and nothing else and you'd see people taking 9 Vendettas at 2500pt 'ard boyz.

The IG list that won it in 2k9 did not spam 9 of them. In fact I don't think it even had a single one (or maybe it had 1).

I think the Trygon won't just sell due to SNMS...it's also a pretty fun thing in Apocalypse, alongside Raveners.

And guess what else just got made into plastic?

They will sell because most Gamers aren't as whingey or nit picky as those on the Interwebs

It sure wont sell on rules. It will initially and then people will come to find the Trygon/Mawloc isn't the end all/be all in the HS slots.

Yeah, so much Tyranid stuff, so little actual money.

I think you're wrong about the trygon/mawloc, but we'll see I guess.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Cor. Imagine that. A PLC looking to make as much money as possible, using all products at their disposal to make sure they get a return on their latest investments.

Has the world gone mad?

I guess expecting a company that calls itself "Games Workshop" to be competent at making games is unreasonable.

Fateweaver wrote:I still yet to see a 9 Vendetta NON-APOC army Sid.

And that means what? Just because you don't see people cramming 9 of them into every list doesn't mean it's not underpriced. You won't typically see more than 3-4 in most competitive lists simply because it takes up way too much room beyond that point.

I'm not saying it's overpowered, it's just a little too cheap for what it can do in my opinion. I'm not really trying to complain, I like the IG codex, I'm just saying there's a reason why it's better than everything else in the book.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:For those joining the boycott siggie thing, to give perspective why not mention the amount youwould have spent on GW products, as well as the amount you have spent on non-GW modelly goodness?

Whilst I agree with this, the amount of money you would have spent is somewhat ephemeral as purchases are often tiered. e.g. If I buy a box of Terminators I may at a later point require and buy a Land Raider to transport them or another box of Terminators to make a full squad. If I never buy the Terminators it will never occur to me to buy the Land Raider or the second box of Terminators.

The money you would have spent doesn't always go on toy soldiers, conversely if another game really takes your interest then you may spend more than you would have previously, This is especially true when getting into a new game. Toy soldiers are entirely about perceived value.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:For those joining the boycott siggie thing, to give perspective why not mention the amount youwould have spent on GW products, as well as the amount you have spent on non-GW modelly goodness?

Point, but we dont know. How many of us know from January what we are going to spend all year. I think its enough to be here (and thus nominally someone interested in GW games) and paying a disproportionately large percentage of the hobby money in non GW games.

I think its enough that we post on Warhammer and 40k forums and take an interest in those games while clocking up money spent on other armies and none/next to none spent on GW over the year. the potential loss need not be quantified, the fact that its there, not the amount is what matters.

As ive said many times, this whole debate is a tad pointless, big companies always start to suck, and then the nerds like us complain about it.

Its happened with almost everything that ever became "mainstream"

I love 40k, so while i might dislike some of GW practices, i aint stoppin buying anything, and frankly i find some of the bizarre super aggressive rants by some people on here very bizarre indeed.

Its like some sort of love/hate battered wife syndrome, you know, where they hate their husband and want to kill him but love him too much to leave?

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:They will sell because most Gamers aren't as whingey or nit picky as those on the Interwebs

If you're going to troll, at least be entertaining about it, Kinghammer.


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Fateweaver wrote:It sure wont sell on rules. It will initially and then people will come to find the Trygon/Mawloc isn't the end all/be all in the HS slots.

Yeah, so much Tyranid stuff, so little actual money.

I thought you were going to cowboy up and spend to make up for the people boycotting?

Or were you just trolling and trying to be an Internet Tough Guy?

I said little money, not NO MONEY.

I figure to get my army to apoc size by summer will require another 2-3K on my part (counting forgeworld stuff) and than their is daemons and possibly DE if they get released this year.

So I'm not the internet tough guy. I have 12 months although I see 3/4ths of the "boycott tough guys" resuming their normal buying habits in the next 2-3 months.

I'll stick to my promise of spending $2k more on 40k in the next 12 months than any of you will stick to your boycott for the next 2.

Who's acting the tough guy now?

Sidstyler wrote:1. They can't write rules. Hence the hole-filled, typo-ridden celebration of ambiguity that is every 40k rulebook.

2. The fans can do better than GW, it's just that a lot of them don't seem to have a proper grasp of the concept of balance. Then again neither does GW, they willfully make certain units outperform others in order to push models.

I mean you can't argue that the valkyrie/vendetta are anything but underpriced. The trygon/mawloc I imagine will be just as beastly (and cheap) when the Tyranid codex comes out, since they have a new $50 model to sell.

this statment is wrong yes there gona have modles that over power most in the game thats how things work.
if the ganme was comptly balanced it would be bland and boring having things that out match anuffer makes it fun as you sit there thinking how can i beat that armie list with what i have sure some times you lose some times you dont.

as to the fan made stuff are you mad most of it is insanly bad and fluff driven wich is a good thing in some ways but do you really want to sit there and takle 20mins to kill 1 SM (no thank you).

thats my 2 cents on that

Back OT

imho you guys willl get no where with this if you guys do i will eat something nasty(oww peas) GW is in controll no matter if the fans are pissed at them or not,I liken the hobby to sports as it is really a sport say a footballer(soccer for the yanks) misses on peniltys every fan gose mentel and the fans whant him out of the club but how many times has this happoned (im not a big footie fan) it dosnt make a diffrence what the fans whantthat club will mostlikly keep that player on.

yes GW have missed the mark on a few things the past few years yes.
you'r intiled to bitch about it but GW wont change.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:For those joining the boycott siggie thing, to give perspective why not mention the amount youwould have spent on GW products, as well as the amount you have spent on non-GW modelly goodness?

While I won't be adding my expenditures to my signatures, I would guess that anyone that is doing so purchases in the same manner as I do. I have a budget for gaming, approximately $200 a month. If I buy something gaming related, it comes from that pool. So, when I took my money into the FLGS and spent only $25 on the new Skaven army book, there's $175 that didn't go to Games Workshop.

Pre the C+D fracas, that might have been $175 for Games Workshop with $25 going elsewhere. Perhaps all of it would have gone to GW, I need some serious amount of rats.

I'd just like to say, for the record, that I never intended or endorsed a boycott and I'm not really sure how it warped into that. I have felt that a lot of the problems that GWS has are largely related to poor communication, which is what I was really interested in improving. In fact, the only time the word "boycott" appeared in my post was when I stated it was not a boycott.

However, my distaste for some of GWS's actions has influenced my purchasing choices. I'm never stated that I would not buy anything from them, but I certainly intend to spend significantly less if anything on GWS this year. I've started switching over to Warmachine as my "go-to" game... which is not an ideal situation, since I like 40k's mythos far more. In any event, I've dropped in the last 2 weeks $145 on PP that would have certainly gone to Legion of the Damned and drop pods. This was to be a small point of the overall message, not the whole message... /shrug